I'm stupid: BIOS help needed

[Brian Ellis]

I've done something stooopid.

Briefly: needed to update O/S on a 'puter with XP Pro.

Put DVD into drive after giving priority to CDROM in BIOS (Phoenix Awardbios v. 6.00PG)

It proceeded OK to "press any key to start from CD" when it came up with "error loading operating system" (the DVD is fine in other computers and the drive works fine, as well)

Tried everything to get it to boot from DVD without success.

As this is obviously a BIOS/CMOS problem, I tried resetting the BIOS to default values. BIG ERROR

I get no output from the Gainward NVidia PCIe graphics adapter! That means I'm blind and the BIOS probably still doesn't permit booting. The MoBo (Nvidia) doesn't have an inbuilt graphics adaptor.

I tried Del to get into BIOS set-up, but this remained invisible and F!! never worked, anyway.

Have Googled and found nothing relevant to the combination of no graphics and unable to boot. I don't have a simple default-type graphics adapter.

Anyone any suggestions, please?

[Umfriend]

No clue. What is the MB and does it have AGP or PCI? If it does not then I would think that the PCIe would be the default graphics adapter?

[Dr Mordrid]

Had this happen once & had to upgrade the BIOS. The MB was able to do a BIOS upgrade from floppy, so I prepped one on another system and followed the manual. IIRC it wasn't automatic & had to be set to boot from floppy.

[xortam]

It seems that you have two approaches; 1) buy/borrow a "default-type" graphics adapter (probably quite cheap for a simple one) or 2) someone with your same BIOS could step you through the keystrokes so you could blindly set your video correctly. I'll check my BIOS'es the next time I get a chance to reboot.

[KRSESQ]

Yeah first things first, swap out that graphics adaptor with any old pci adaptor you have on hand and try to restart again. If it still doesn't work then we need to know exactly what make/model of mb you have so we can do a cold reset.

Apparently when you restored the defaults, it switched from pcie to pci as the default video output. Normally in my experience if it detects a pcie instead, it will automatically adjust. The fact yours doesn't might indicate a problem with the video card itself.

edit Sorry for the stupid question but given this is an xp machine, (depending on how old it actually is) are you sure it has a dvdrom drive?

[cjolley]

does your vid card have 2 outputs? if so try switching them.
can you change to a vga cable if you are using dvi?


You know, KRSESQ has a point. If it's an old pc it may not be able to boot from dvd.
Try booting from a live linux cd.

[Marshmallowman]

Quick fix to try, try holding down insert key while booting, some motherboards use this as a way to boot using failsafe defaults.
or
If you can retry doing the bios clear via onboard jumper, if it is to tricky remove power and clock battery and wait 30 minutes before putting battery backing and trying to boot again.(if you selected optimsied defaults in bios you may be stuck due to that)

Definetiely try a PCI video card, that is what I usualy end up usuing as a last resort.

As to booting the DVD, try hitting f11 during boot (or whatever is in the manual) to get to the boot menu and then selecting the dvd drive.

If you do get back to the bios , make sure the channel you are trying to boot from is from the chipset.
Some motherboards use an extra chip to add extra IDE/SATA channels but they will usualy not boot from CD/DVDs or must be explicitly be set as the main boot addon card(even though it is integrated) and/or make sure it is not in RAID mode, and maybe even IDE mode not ACHI.
I have had motherboards where you must do this in 2 stages, set add on as primary boot card then reboot and go into bios and select required boot drive.

Also on some occasions you may have a situation where you have not video output until you get into windows(or whatever OS), so give it plenty of time to try and boot(is the HDD active or does do nothing after intial powerup?)

[Brian Ellis]

OK, Thanks for your knowledgeable answers. I'll answer a few points raised in the various posts.
Although it is an XP 'puter, it is relatively modern (core 2 duo, SATA discs etc.) XP was chosen deliberately over Vista or Win 7 at the time of purchase, as I was using Ulead Media Studio Pro for video work. And, yes, it is a SATA DVD drive, as I was using it regularly to burn video DVDs!

It does not have AGP, just PCI (used for IEEE 1394 adaptor) and PCIe. It has 4 Gb of DRAM and several HDDs (one IDE and the rest SATA) adding up to almost a Tby.. It has no floppy. Cannot upgrade BIOS because it would require the CDROM drive to work or (possibly???) via a memory stick, but I need to see what I'm doing to set boot from USB.

The Gainward graphics has 2 outputs, both EVGA (one through DVI>VGA adapter) Neither screen works. They go to two identical AOC 21" screens, configured as one long screen.

The Insert key 'quick fix' does nothing.

Unfortunately, don't have a PCI graphics card and all my other computers have on-board graphics (just used for things like browsing/office work etc, so I can't even salvage one from them.

I seem not to have printed manuals for either the Mobo or the graphics card, probably on line! I haven't yet opened the machine to find the models.

I could have done without this hassle!

[Fat Tone]

Try disconnecting everything you don't need for a boot, start with all external USB devices and then all internal drives.

I have known excessive power draw on the USB power lines of older mobos cause those symptoms.

Best of luck,

T.

[KRSESQ]

Take comfort you haven't lost any info. Had one client plunk down $2000 to recover the info from his ten year old Dell. Another I was able to clone but it took 20 hours and it was throwing errors like crazy toward the end. That guy almost lost his entire Adobe Creative Suite ($2000 package and no install disks or keys) AND his entire art portfolio. Both were Western Digital hdds. So you have one or two blessings to count.

If you plug in a pci video card, remember to look for the mb numbers while you've got the bonnet open. And blow the dust out.

[Maggi]

Hi Brian,

did you already try to clear the CMOS ?

Usually there's a jumper for that, just have a look into the manual.

If it boots after CMOS reset, you'll have to enter the BIOS to set it up for your needs.

HTH,
Maggi

[Brian Ellis]

OK, thanks, guys.

Got one stage further by CMOS reset. I found out why I couldn't see owt: the BIOS setting defaulted to PCI and not PCIe. It seemed it couldn't detect the graphics card.

I then reset the BIOS boot order from HDD to CDROM in 'Advanced BIOS features' and the same in the F11 screen (why two boot order systems?) and started up. The Win XP install disc started, so I thought good. In the menu I pressed R to repair the faulty WIN installation. After a minute, it said something like it can't do anything coz the version of Win XP is different (possible), so I stopped the procedure with a view to a clean install.

Since then, I get NTLDR is missing ctrl-Alt-Del on all attempts to boot either from Win XP CD-ROM/ or Win 7 DVD or trying to boot into HDD. GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!

The crux is I cannot get beyond BIOS.

Anyway, I persevere!

[Umfriend]

I _think_ it is trying to boot from HDD if you get NTLDR is missing. Are you sure it is booting from CD-ROM when you get that msg? Booting Win-Setup from CD/DVD gives some distinctive texts from which you should be able to recognise.

Alternatively, and assuming the data on the HDD isn't critical in any way, transfer HDD to other computer, format it, place back and perform clean install.

Edit: the HDD swapping would not be necessary if you can get Win-Setup running for a little bit so that you can fdisk and format from there.

[xortam]

OK, thanks, guys.

Got one stage further by CMOS reset. I found out why I couldn't see owt: the BIOS setting defaulted to PCI and not PCIe. It seemed it couldn't detect the graphics card. ...

That's what I assumed and why I was recommending a "default-style" graphics card so you could get back into the BIOS and set the video correctly. So are you saying the CMOS reset caused your BIOS to set the video bus to PCIe and allow you to use your current video card?

[KRSESQ]

If it's booting from the dvd now and if it's giving you the "ntldr missing" error then technically it is getting beyond the bios. It just isn't finding everything it's supposed to. Definitely make sure you have the right disk for your version of xp and try it again.