Help XP wont boot past dos screen

[vader]

Hello everyone...I have XP professional and my problem started after flashing my bios to the latest one on the gigabyte website...after it had finished updating i then rebooted the pc. After going through the memory test and going to the second dos screen it now just hangs up at the dos screen. My motherboard is a Gigabyte GA7S748-L and i updated the bios to F8. I cant put the Windows XP cd in as it wont read it nor a floppy. Ive tries updating the flash in the bios to the version before but it just hangs up so at the moment im using a friends pc to type this. Can anyone help.

[Olly1234]

Have you cleared the cmos settings using the jumper on the board since flashng it?

[directhex]

can you explain in more detail?

for one thing, XP doesn't _HAVE_ any bits of ms-dos, so "xp won't boot past dos screen" isn't helpful whenj xp doesn't RUN on ms-dos at any stage

[EvilMunky]

thats what i was thinking.

am guessing he means it gets past POST and then stops just before the "Loading Windows XP" type thing.

Are the hard drives detecetd properly in the bios?

[vader]

Yep it stops just before the Loading XP screen.

All hard drives are detected and i have removed the battery on the motherboard to clear CMOS but still nothing. My motherboard isnt dual bios which is a pain. I updated the driver on Gigabytes website so i haven't messed up the update in any way...maybe the update to F8 hasn't been finished yet and they have put it up regardless

[directhex]

boot a windows nt 5 cd (2k, xp, 2003), go to the recovery console, trype "fixboot" then "fixmbr"

then try again

[Brodieman]

To be honest, I would do a repair install. rather than a fixboot and fixmbr.. the reason I would suggest this is the bios update could of made modifications to the bios that now add extra features, or even removed them which would cause your system to be unstable... a repair install won't mean you have to re-install all your apps.. probably just the hotfixes and sp's..

But lets us know how it goes.. and also if you are able to boot from CD/disk...

(could be a raid issue... that is if the update has change the raid records.... anyway we'll cross that bridge when we come to it)... try the above stuff first.