First post, by Odiseo
Hello, I used to visit this place half a year ago because I was upgrading my old DeskPro system (thread). As this upgrade process was rather unsuccessful, I gave up somewhere in February, and didn't touch the machine for months. Basically, I was trying to install Windows 2000, but the installation process kept failing. A few days ago, I decided to try again. I remembered the last pieces of advice which fillosaurus and vlask gave me, namely to use only paired RAMS and to take out all unnecessary PCI devices (sound card, etc.).
So I did what I was advised to do and turned the power on. After booting the system, it resumed the Windows 2000 installation process. Much to my surprise, it succeeded – either because I had taken out one RAM module or the unnecessary devices (thank you, fillosaurus and vlask). Installation succeeded without any further problems, the machine loaded Windows 2000 and completed some final configuration. The CPU upgrade (AMD K6-2) worked great, and 128MB of RAM were detected. I used it for a time, then powered down, powered back on again, used it some more time. All without any problems.
Then I remembered about the second optical drive (DVD reader; the first optical drive is a regular CD reader) – which I had not yet connected – in the other drive bay. I powered down once more, opened up the case and connected the DVD drive to a power connector that was not in use by another device and used a spare 40-wire IDE cable I had lying around to connect that DVD drive to the secondary connector on the mobo. I also got out two more RAM modules because I was wondering whether the machine was even using all the modules I had inserted (six). I powered back on, but the machine didn’t boot. So I changed the way I had connected the primary and secondary IDE cables (and some power cables too, because I had noticed before that the way power cables are connected on this thing can determine whether the device in question can be operated). When I tried to boot this time, it again failed to do so. After POST the following message came on-screen: “Non-system disk or no disk error. Replace and press any key.”
I can’t remember how the IDE and power cables were connected before, nor after, I tried to connect the DVD drive. I can tell, however, that I have tried about any way I could think of to connect the primary 80-wire cable.
(80-wire cable; 19th pin missing on the connectors)
M |----------------------------------------------------------C-------------------| H
O |----------------------------------------------------------D-------------------| A
B |----------------------------------------------------------D-------------------| R
O |----------------------------------------------------------R-------------------| D
|------------------------------------------------------------I--------------------| D
|------------------------------------------------------------V-------------------| R
|------------------------------------------------------------E-------------------| I
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------------| V
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------------| E
-----------------------------------------------------------(slave)---------------(master)
I tried this set-up several times. I took care to connect the blue connector to the primary connector on the mobo. In most cases I put the jumper on the hard drive to Master (a few times to CS). I did not connect the CD drive in all cases, but if I did, I always put it to slave. Now that I think of it; sometimes I connected the CD drive to its own cable, which I connected to the secondary connector on the mobo. In these cases, I forgot to make the CD Drive master on its own cable. Since this boot problem started I have left out the DVD drive.
I figured something could be wrong with the hard drive. I got it out, set the jumper to slave, put it in my newer computer and connected it to the middle connector on the 80-wire cable that came with my newer computer. My 120GB hard drive was on the master connector. My Pentium 4 computer booted just fine and I could open up the deskpro hard drive. For testing purposes, I formatted it in Windows XP and then copied some new data to it. The hard drive should be fine.
I figured something could be wrong with the 80-wire cable in the DeskPro. I got it out and connected it to the hard drive in my newer computer (blue connector on the mobo; master connector on the 120GB hard drive). When I then powered on my Pentium 4, it wouldn’t boot. However, when I tried to connect the Pentium 4 80-wire cable in my old Deskpro (blue on the mobo; master on the hard drive), that machine still didn’t boot. Do you think the deskpro 80-wire cable could be broken, or is it possible that the cables of these computers can’t be used in the other computer (for whatever reason)? Oh, and the Pentium 4 80-wire cable works for sure; it’s right now connected to the hard drive in the newer Pentium 4 computer I am writing this text on.
All I need to know is how to connect the IDE and power cables in the Deskpro type of machine. I repeat that right after I had gotten out one RAM module and all PCI devices, the deskpro booted, loaded Windows 2000 and was very stable. No boot errors, slowdowns, lockups, error messages or anything. And I had it reboot and run several times. I was very close to having it work the way I wanted it (save the DVD drive and two of the PCI devices), and then this happened 🙁.
I assume the cause of the hard drive not being detected must either be the IDE cable being incorrectly connected, or having gone faulty. I have already tried some standard advice for this kind of problems (jumper on the HDD to master, HDD on the end of the cable, blue connector on the mobo). That didn't help anything, so maybe the deskpro type of machine requires the IDE cable being connected in another, special way?
Maybe it's the mobo sorting out. How do I check that?
I repeat that the error message I get is the following: “Non-system disk or no disk error. Replace and press any key.”
Thank you!!
EDIT: I can boot the PC to MS-DOS using a Windows 98SE Boot floppy. There still is no hard drive support if I do so, but I would say that the fact the mobo recognizes the floppy drive implies that the mobo is not broken.
EDIT#2: I always make sure to insert the riser board (without the PCI devices inserted).