NO boot device detected system halted

[MaryG]

Hi,
I hope someone here can help me. I have installed a new HD, formatted it, and reloaded XP. My computer completes the installation and when it reboots, a black screen with (NO boot device detected system halted) I haven't a clue what this means. Any help and or advice is greatly appreciated!
Thank you in advance,
Mary

[rjfvillarosa]

Welcome to PC Mech
1. can you tell us the complete specifications of your computer?
2. why did you change the hard drive?
3. what make and model is the the new hard drive?
4. what do you have the jumper on the back of the hard drive set to?
5. what type of IDE cable are you using for the new hard drive?

[MaryG]

Thank you for replying so quickly. It's a Dell computer, my computer crashed last week reverting back to (Yuck) ME, I had installed XP opn it so this really freaked me out. I tried installing the OS again XP and I kept getting no hare drive detected, so that told me my HD died. So I bought a new one Maxtor 40gig, formatted it and set the jumpers to Master. I still got the problem of no HD detected, went into BIOS and it would not recognize it. I removed it from the controller and plugged it in to the motherboard and went into the BIOS and it was recognized. Clean start reinstalled XP, all is great it completely loaded, I loaded the office software. All is good. When the system reboots the black screen saying No boot device, system halted appears, now this is what has gotten mt puzzled. Any suggestions please would be great.
Thank you,
Mary

[rjfvillarosa]

You say your old hard drive died on you, are you sure? it sounds more like a BIOS/mother board fault, do you have access to another machine?

[MaryG]

I'm keeping the old HD, I'm sure it does still work, I was told the controller went bad,. The new HD is recognized in BIOS. It couldn't be returned anyway. But, why that message is appearing after rebooting has gotten me why is that happeining?
Mary

[rjfvillarosa]

It could be a BIOS issue, a control chip or even a bad stick of RAM, did you notice any flicker in your house lights or where ever this machine is located prior to the first hard drive going bad?

[MaryG]

No , I was on my laptop downstairs, it was crawling, my boyfriend tole me he couldn't get on line. I went up and his page was loading very very slowiy. so i closed down and rebooted and when I did this is when it reverted back to the old OS (ME)

[rjfvillarosa]

What type of XP were you running on that machine? was it an over the top installation on top of ME? or was this a dual boot on one hard drive?

[MaryG]

It was an XP ugrade, so I had to buy the whole version XP pro.

[rjfvillarosa]

Have you checked the boot sequence in the BIOS? also a zero fill and reinstall of XP might be in order.
It would be very handy if you had another tower that you could test some of the hard ware in.

[MaryG]

The boot sequence is cdrom first then HD, right? and what do you mean by, also a zero fill and reinstall of XP might be in order.
Mary

[rjfvillarosa]

Your boot sequence is wrong that is why it's not finding the OS. Try changing it to
A,C,CDROM or
Floppy,Hard Drive 0, CDROM or
Floppy, IDE 0, CDROM
Whatever the bios options are.

[MaryG]

If I am booting from the CD it needs to be first in the sequence right?

[rjfvillarosa]

Yes but once your operating system is installed you should boot from the hard drive first.
Putting a floppy as the first boot device was a failsafe for if you ever needed to boot your system into DOS, the bios would see no floppy in the drive and then carry on to the next boot device (ie the hard drive or cdrom), for some reason most bios versions if they don't see an OS on the hard drive (if it's the first boot device) will stall, similarly if the CD is the first boot device, again it will stall.
Why are you trying to boot from the CD if the OS is already installed?

[MaryG]

Thank you, I will have to double check the sequence. I had the CD-ROM set to boot first to istall the OS. So what you are saying is after the OS is installed go to BIOS and change the sequence to floppy, harddrive, cdrom?
Thank you,Mary

[rjfvillarosa]

Thats it, anything you want to install after that from another CD will automatically be picked up from the CD by windows.

[MaryG]

Great, thank you so much for your time. I'm signing off to go and check it out and see if this is the problem. Thanks again.
:-)Mary

[rjfvillarosa]

Come back and let me know if it is all OK, then maybe one of us can talk you through running some tests on the old hard drive so that maybe you can save it and use it as a slave.

[glc]

You also want to use Cable Select, not Master. Dell IDE cables are cable select type cables.

[MaryG]

rjfvillarosa: You are absolutely correct. That was the problem. As soon as I changed the sequence the OS booted right up. Thank you so much for your help and time.
Mary

[MaryG]

I just wanted to make sure you got this. Your help was greatly appreciated. I changed the sequence and the OS boots fine now. Thank you again.

[rjfvillarosa]

Are you up to do a little more? ie: do you want to format that old hard drive and use it as a slave?
My favourite configuration is a small hard drive with the OS on it and then a larger hard drive (slave) with "My Documents", it is an exact copy of my documents in windows but I save everything to the slave hard drive, that way if you need to format and reinstall windows at a later date you don't have to back up all your personal stuff, all you do is disconnect the slave untill the install is finished.

[MaryG]

I never would have thought of that either.That sounds like a good idea. I want to first get back up and running with all the software, updates, Norton and back on the network which will probably take me a little while. Can I bend your ear later if I need some help?
Thank you,
Mary

[rjfvillarosa]

No problem at all, just look out for me or just post a thread. If it's about making that old hard drive into a slave post it in "drives and storage"
Broaden your horizons here at the boards, there is loads to learn and lots of great help and advice and a lot of far more knowledgeable people than me.

[rjfvillarosa]

Do your self a favour and don't bother with norton its not that good these days and its a system resouces hog.
Go here www.grisoft.com and download AVG7 it is free and it is an excellent antivirus tool.
If you spend a bit of time surfing the net you might want to get yourself one or two spyware scanners, I only ever use this one, Adaware 1.05SE from www.lavasoft.com its really good and again free.

[WhatsThisBoxFor?]

Originally Posted by rjfvillarosa Do your self a favour and don't bother with norton its not that good these days and its a system resouces hog.

I disagree slightly, if it is Norton 2004 or 2005 then it is a resource hog and probably not worth installing, but if you have payed for Norton 2003 then it is perfectly fine to use, and has a good detection engine. I myself am a user of Norton, although I bought a 5-pack of licenses for the corporate edition (well my mum did,. without askign me, but it works and is not bloated) and use that without problems. (And the corporate edition does not have subscription charges, before version 8 at least.)