Hi TC,
Just got back from a great 10 day vacation in San Diego. Seem to have missed a rather hot, humid week here in the Northeast. Darn the luck <g>. Just got done going through the last couple of hundred CL posts (sure glad it was a slow week :). Anyway your BIOS queries looked intriguing.
There's not enough info to say for sure, but the following are some thoughts. First, a number of motherboards set the CPU speed in software or have a hardware/software choice. Usually by setting a multiplier and/or Front Side Bus (FSB) speed. Some CPU's have the multiplier "locked" and have the speed set via the FSB setting. I'm familar with setting the FSB improperly (ie 133 when it should be 100) and having the system refuse to boot until the FSB was reset via hardware override or clearing the CMOS as you are often unable to re-enter the software setup. It is also possible to enter a setting that makes the system unstable although operable. However, the first of these appears unlikely as it would have precluded getting to the point of a format. The second may be possible if windows has more sophisticated error checking than I thought, and is detecting the instability and relating it to an improper CPU speed.
I think it more likely, though, that windows (or the BIOS)is checking the CPU version and step and arbitrarily deciding it is set outside of "acceptable" parameters. I don't know if it is still a problem but some (all?) versions of Windows would not install if the CMOS date was invalid (ie - date from the early 1980's) and I suppose Windows might have a similar problem with an invalid CPU setup. Actually, if the CMOS is still hosed the date may be a cause of trouble.
There is also the hard drive. If the CMOS settings for the hard drive are different from the settings when it was partitioned, then new format and old partitioning could be using conflicting drive geometry schemes requiring an fdisk fix (delete partition, add partition, format again).
Also, besides the already mentioned possibilty that the drive was not sys'd; it may not have a partition set as active.
To fix (and I'll mostly reiterate previous suggestions):
1. Determine CPU type, multiplier, and FSB; see if there is a jumper to have hardware settings overide software settings; and set the jumpers appropriately. Otherwise, determine if the cmos settings can be cleared via a jumper or by removing the battery (which may need to be out for up to 24 hours).
2. Turn on the computer and enter the CMOS setup. Look for an option to set SETUP(Optimal) or BIOS(Safe) defaults. If you have a choice take the SETUP defaults. Then set the date and, if there is an IDE setup option, use it. If you get multiple choices for a drive take the LBA one. By the way, if the drive was originally set up using software that bypassed/augmented the BIOS, then it is almost impossible to know what it may have set the CMOS to. Also, formatting and repartitioning usually does not remove the software meaning that it can still wreak havoc until it is removed with a low level format or reinstalled to set the CMOS properly again.
3. If you did not reinstall the above mentioned drive software, boot from a floppy, delete any partitons, add a new primary partition (and extended/logical partitons If desired; remembering to set the active partition if multiple partitions are installed), reboot from a floppy, and format the partition(s) using the /s option on the c partition.
4. Boot from a floppy with cdrom support and install windows.
Hope this helps.
Good luck,
Steve |
