Problem: Hard drives not detected - BIOS boot freezes

[OrleanKnight]

Alright, I had originally thought that the issue was my Keyboard. But after some extensive troubleshooting throughout the day - I've concluded that my Motherboard doesn't detect my hard drives. Not the solution isn't exactly as simple as you might think, here's the break down:

The Hardware

Motherboard: ASUS M3A78-EM

I have THREE Hard drives.

1 x WD800 - 80gig (oldest) - Completely blank, but formated on old PC. [IDE]

1 x Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 9 - 200gig - Original system from old PC, all files and partitions stored here. [IDE]

1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200 - 250gig (newest) - [SATA]

What I've Done So Far...

When I boot the system when an IDE Hard drive plugged in as a Primary, with correct jumper settings on the HD, the computer freezes on the M3A78-EM window. It tells me to press DEL to enter Setup, but nothing happens. I concluded that the computer freezes at this point.

So I've tried to plug in each hard drive on its own, so there is no Slave/Master crap, and it's all Cable Set. But still, I get the same result.

No matter what I try, the Motherboard just doesn't seem to want to acknowledge the fact that I'm plugging a Hard drive into it. The IDE bus works, I tested it on my DVD-DL drive and the drive spins up just fine and begins reading the CD inside.

My PSU is supplying power the devices.

The only thing I haven't done is reset the CMOS, because i'm unsure exactly what this does and I'm not certain the process behind it and whether or not it will fix my problem. Any help is appreciated.

[Papa Lazarou]

A CMOS reset might be worthwhile - this puts the BIOS to factory default settings. Its the normal first thing to try if your system fails to POST (power on self test).

If you think the hard drives are a problem area, I would be looking to get it initially started with just the SATA drive I think. On newer boards PATA support seems almost like an afterthought.

Going back to where the system freezes - is it on the graphical splash screen most mobo's have these days? Have you at any point got past this screen with any configuration (even with no drives connected at all)?

As an example of the sort of thing you can run into, I recently built a system that powered up, and displayed an output on screen, but would not get past the first graphical screen giving the branding (it was actually a Shuttle system). So it was not posting correctly. After disconnecting everything, reseating memory, removing memory sticks, refitting the processor, etc no amount of fiddling would get it to work... I successfully got it to POST with an old processor. It turned out that the BIOS supplied with the motherboard was old and didn't support the CPU I was trying to use. A quick bios flash later and it was sorted.

[OrleanKnight]

My CPU can with the Mobo, part of the Tigerdirect package.

But now things seems to be getting worse and worse. I tried to reset the CMOS as instructed by the manual, but the results were troublesome. Now there is no video output. Nothing seems to happen now when I boot the system.

I tried to do it again, but still the same result.

*Scratches head* Any idea on what I'm doing wrong now?

[kmac]

Sounds like a faulty motherboard - maybe time to send it back to Tiger and get them to replace?

[nikohmr]

My CPU can with the Mobo, part of the Tigerdirect package.

But now things seems to be getting worse and worse. I tried to reset the CMOS as instructed by the manual, but the results were troublesome. Now there is no video output. Nothing seems to happen now when I boot the system.

I tried to do it again, but still the same result.

*Scratches head* Any idea on what I'm doing wrong now?

you did put the jumper back correctly?
also you didn't turn the pc on with the jumper in the reset position did you?

[OrleanKnight]

I did not turn on the PC while the Jumper was in the reset position, the instruction manual said do it all while the power is off and it is unplugged, and there is no LED light on the Motherboard. Like most people with a brain, we tend not to ever touch the motherboard while the power is on.

[nikohmr]

if the bios reset is done correctly it cant do any harm(that's why i asked )
so i would say ether a wire ,gpu etc was knocked/disconected while you were doing it (causing the no output prob)or the mobos knackered

[OrleanKnight]

Thanks for all the help guys, but I resolved it myself by reading around the internet. I realized a few things.. Here was my list of issues and how I resolved them to help someone else out later:

A) I noticed my computer would boot up, but it'd freeze on the BIOS splash screen. This means my keyboard wouldn't accept commands, but it did for the first 10 seconds of booting.

B) I troubleshooted and realized my Hard drives weren't being read. It wasn't a jumper issue, everything was set correctly. Still the problem remained.

C) I reset CMOS, but I incorrectly reset CMOS by not properly disconnecting the PSU from my motherboard, even though the power cord was unplugged.

I resolved the incorrect CMOS reset by:

* Removing everything from the Mobo but the CPU, all cards, video card, ram, all PSU cords.. etc.
* Removed CMOS battery.
* Reset CMOS by Jumper for about 30 seconds to a minute, then replaced jumper.
* I set the computer aside and went to bed for about 10 hours, keep noted I didn't put the CMOS battery back in.
* When I got up, I put the CMOS battery back in. Plugged in only the video card & ram, and PSU cords to the mobo.
* I booted it up, and instantly BIOS reset just fine and everything is working!

--

I realize that probably, most likely, someone else used the Motherboard before me! So resetting the CMOS fixed all my Keyboard, Hard drive issues.. and now everything is going fine.

RESOLVED!