It looks like the system did not detect any of your drives — it says "none" against all the drives in this table. I assume that it doesn't show them on the first POST screen either (the one that appears right after you press the power button).

1. Disconnect all the drives including the FDD. Remove all the cards except for video. Attach them one by one and make sure everything works before you add another drive.
2. I'd reset the BIOS settings just to be on the safe side. Check that all IDE drives are set to be autodetected and both IDE controllers are enabled. Also check if the FDD controller is enabled.
3. Check the jumpers on the drives. You'd want to get HDD to be primary master and CD-ROM to be primary slave. Usually the drive has the instruction for the jumpers written on it. If not, you'll have to google as the jumpers are not standard. From my experience you might have to experiment with the jumpers. First make sure you get the HDD is detected (without the CD-ROM connected)

I took the picture with only the CD-ROM connected, that's why its not detecting anything. I did test all the stuff mentioned above (in Post #1) alone and in conjunction with each other. I also did reset the BIOS and checked if the FDD and IDE controllers were enabled which was the case. Jumpers on the drive are also correctly set to master and slave, also switched those around. I did not test the hard drive which is supposed to go in the system, but I detected the 486s hard drive just fine, so I guess that shouldn't be a problem. Since its not even booting of floppy or CD-ROM id didn't bother to much with the HDD yet.

Thanks for your help though 😀

Have you checked how the bios is set up, regarding the drives?
"Detect harddrive", or setting the harddrives to "auto"?
Choosing "1.44 mb" for the floppy and finally setting the boot order?

You can try your memory sticks in sets of two to make sure there is no defect. Also, the CDROM booting was just invented at the time and the CDROM booting function may be buggy.

If it is an Award BIOS I think it should print "Updating ESCD... success." Your flash chip might be write protected or worn out.

Might need to run a floppy with ATAPI CD-ROM drivers on it. I recommend the Windows 98 boot disk. It always worked for me in the past.

Are you trying to boot Windows setup off CD-R/CD-RW? Is your CD drive modern enough for that?

Hey all,

thanks for all the answers, lets get to it:

@brostenen
yeah, auto hard drive detection worked fine when i tested it with the 486s drive, just haven't tried it with the drive I wanted to put in the computer, but I guess it should work just as fine. As I said, since I can't get the computer to boot anything I really didn't try to much but atleast detection worked fine.
And yes, I chose 1,44 mb and set the boot order correctly to “A”. Also tried floppy swap in Bios or setting it up as B, but no success either.

@h-a-l-9000
I just tried with just one stick, two, the other two, … at least on the memory side everything seems to be fine. And yes, maybe its buggy, but since I also can't boot of floppy or hard drive, I don't think that is the problem. Also you are right, it was always printing “Updating ESCD …. success”, I just forget the success, was writing this post of the the top of my head. I'll add that to first post now though.

@FFXIhealer
The board supports booting from CD-ROM, so a boot disk shouldn't be required. But since I had success with a boot floppy in the past, I already tested that even before trying to boot DOS. Didn't boot from those either…

@jheronimus
I'm trying to boot of a CD-R, and I don’t know for sure that my drive supports them, but it was made in 2005 so I highly suspect it does.

I thought CD booting is a pure software thing and thus doesn't depend on the drive? The drive must be able to read the media though.

Some more things to try, if you didn't already:
- CMOS clear jumper
- check the CMOS battery
- try another floppy cable
- try another power supply

It should at least be able to boot from floppy. If it doesn't help, your board seems to have some damage...

Besides trying another power supply I have done all the above. I only have one other AT power supply which is in my 486 which I'm not gonna rip apart. I suspect it works since it made the board boot in the first place, which the old power supply that came with the system I found the board in did not.

I didn't mention before that my board is from an OEM system. Could this be the root of the problem ?

EDIT: I also just tried an ISA FDD controller card, which the system detects fine, but it doesn't print me anything but “Updating ESCD …. Success” either.

Might be silly to even ask, but are you 101% sure you've connected the IDE and floppy data cables the right way? Older connectors don't always have those guides, which means it's possible to connect them wrongly.

If that's the case, look for pin 1 markings on the PCBs, and connect the cables wth their red edges towards the pin 1 ends of the connectors. On HDD's that's usually the end closest to the power connector, on floppy drives it's often the other way around. As for the mobo, the only ways to find out are either the manual, or markings on the PCB.

CMOS batteries about to die can cause strange problems too. Try with a fresh battery.

It ain't silly to ask, couple of years ago this was new information for me (I'm only 21y old), but no they are connected in the right way. The twisted end is in the floppy and the other end is on the board, pin 1 is also correct with the red wire going into pin 1… Haven't tried a new CMOS battery but I'll gonna buy some new IDE and FDD cable and a new CMOS of ebay just to make sure. I will need them one day anyway so why not.

The thing is after the computer prints the no boot medium line, if I press enter the floppy will make some loading noise again, but even before it stops making noise the computer will already have printed the next no boot medium line which makes me think maybe the computer sends the request but doesn't wait for the floppy to answer.. Just a thought though

you didn't mention what disk drive you're using. If it's a larger newer drive the mainboard will have trouble detecting it. Also, I'm sure you know this, but you need to set up the boot order from "advanced bios settings" to "CDROM, C, A" if you want to boot from CD, and you need to correctly set up the master / slave jumper on the HDD.

I'm going to use a 14,3 Gigabyte WD hard drive. I'm quite sure that this will be to big for the BIOS (if not I'm pleasantly surprised, but surprised non the less). I'm planning on just cutting it down with the BIOS. I did the same with my 486's HDD which went from a 8.4 to 2 Gb drive. And yes I know about boot order and master/slave stuff, right now I'm just trying to get the FDD to boot.

There is something these guys are missing here...The flat cable.
The flat cable is battered (those weird characters. You saw that ?). Also, the screenshot
indicates your CD is bootable and has been found. However, you must proof it is working
by testing it in another PC. Did you use Nero to make this bootable CD ?

About your CD cable (now this is silly!):
The side with two connectors goes to the drives.
The side with one connector goes to the motherboard.

And the side with two connectors must be installed correctly:
The first conector (edge) goes to primary master drive
The second conector (middle) goes to primary slave drive

OK. It is that obvious, but i am a novice. Please, no kill 😀

Floppy cable: Once i had a hardtime trying to boot using floppy drives (3 of them).
Keep trying !

Another possible issue: the screenshot does not show CD-ROM as the master drive (perhaps
that's the way it's in this old BIOS or CD-ROM drive standard).

Just my experience. I am not 100% sure on the detail about those faces, but i immediatelly
thought of virus (just to add one more factor) 😁

Another thing, I've seen some Sony FDD:s with special connectors. They look just like regular FDD connectors with guide slot and everything, but that slot is on the wrong side. I believe they're OEM drives. If you connect them with a regular cable, it's not gonna work. It's easy to fix though, just cut a new guide slot on the opposite side.

Was an add-on controller tried? And the onboard disabled?

@Frasco
yeah I know this stuff and I'm fairly certain I connected it in the right way. Right now I have disconnected all the IDE hardware as I'm trying to get the floppy to work first.

@kaputnik
Ain't a Sony but man Sony and their proprietary bs everywhere 😁

@Logistics
yes and yes. The result was exact same as with onboard controller.

Right now I'm just waiting for a new floppy cable to arrive, since the ones I ordered before seems to be of the newer kind which have one of the holes blocked of so I can't plug it in on the board…

Did you connect the HDD/CD-ROM drives to P_IDE or S_IDE? P_IDE is primary IDE. The weird characters are often a sign of a faulty cable. But as all drives aren't found makes me suspect the mainboard.

Make sure the hardware reset jumper isn't closed.

Edit: ftp://ftp.fic.com.tw/motherboard/manual/socket7/pa-2002/