Help with Win XP install

I have an old computer that i am trying to get working for the kids and am having a few problems getting it going. It has a brand new HDD for which i had to buy a Sata to IDE converter to connect it up. When i turn on the machine i get the IBM logo then 2 or 3 beeps and it say something along the lines of configuration error and says something about the floppy drive.

I have tried changing the settings for this in the bios, but it doesn't stay saved when i save and exit setup, does this mean the battery on the motherboard is knackered?

I aslo want to install Win Xp on this machine, i have had it working in a sense, as far as i have had a totally black screen with what looks like a white map of the motherboard with F1-F12 along the bottom of the screen and it says "No operating system found" but i can't get it to boot from the floppy or CD to install Windows.

Any suggestion would help.
Regards
Rob

What is the verbatim error that you get?

How is your BIOS Boot Menu set?

And just to verify: you have a SATA drive connected to the IDE via an adapter?

Hi,

I'm thinking that you are going to have to start with replacing the battery and see if you can get the BIOS to save the settings... until then there really isn't much that can be done.

Thanks for the help, i will get a new battery on the board and see what happens and i'll let you know.
Thanks
Rob

I Have changed the battery and am still getting the error message, it say 602 diskette error and 162 configuration error. any suggestions.

Hi,

That's a bit strange. The 602 disk error is a CD ROM error code, or at least I thought it was. As someone who has made many bad CD ROMs in his time, I remember that one <blush>. I'll check to see if it is only CD ROM.

So are you able to save the changes in your BIOS now? Is that part working?

The 162 looks like your board may be objecting to the new hard-drive adapter. To restate Jephree's question:
The Drive is a SATA, right?

glenn

Yes, it has got a brand new sata to ide converter for the HDD, i have also tried a normal ide hard drive and get the same issue. It still will not save the changes in the bios even with a new battery. Do you think i should change the CdRom or prehaps the jumpers are in the wrong place.

Hi again,

I think Jephree is going to be better at this one than I am, because I'm not much of a hardware guy, I stick with the OS's and programming. However, not being able to save the settings in the BIOS tells me that something could be physically wrong with the chip set on the board. It also tells me that we are at a hardware level that I am not very useful at, so ... I'll be waiting for Jephree's reply as well. :-)

Unplug all your drives (from the motherboard): floppy; CD; HDD; everything.

Boot and see if you get the same error.

If so remove everything but CPU; Graphics Card; and 1 stick of RAM in slot 1.

Boot and see if you get the same error.

Just to elaborate on the drive troubleshooting: After disconnecting all cables from the motherboard and a boot brings no error we can suspect a drive is faulty. At this point start replacing the drives one at a time. Start with the floppy and then boot: any error? If not go to the DVD/CD. Any error? etc.



Also: when was the last time this computer worked OK?

Can you change any BIOS settings? Try anything at random. Does anything stick?


.

I checked in the bios and some of the options were disabled so i set them at automatic and it firers up to the black screen saying no operating system found and hit the F1 to reboot with no error message, i have checked and it has saved these changes but but in the devices settings bios it says that there is nothing installed apart form the mouse, i got an MSDos boot disc which works and give me the A:\ command prompt, but i do not know what drive letter to tell it to make it boot from the CD.