Replaced Motherboard, now issues

[cday710]

I built my system about 3 years ago and recently my motherboard died. I installed a new board and am now having issues booting up.

I can get into the BIOS and it recognizes all my components. However, when I exit the BIOS, the computer essentially goes into an endless loop. It attempts to fix the issue, it cannot, it goes back to the a screen which gives me the option to attempt to fix or boot as normal. Both take me right back to square 1.

I have a windows 7 installation disk and configured the BIOS to boot from my CD/DVD drive first, however, when I do so it just sits at a black screen with a blinking "_" in the upper left hand corner.

I've been searching for days and am at the point where I would be fine with losing all my data and starting from scratch, but I can't figure out how to do a clean install.

Any advice whatsoever would be much appreciated.

Thanks!

[rjfvillarosa]

Did you replace the dead motherboard with the exact same make and model?
If not, it is very unlikely to boot as the MBR/Windows will not be able to recognize the new board.

[cday710]

No, it's a different model. The old model was discontinued.

How do I go about getting Windows to recognize the board? Or how can I just start from scratch and reformat everything?

[rjfvillarosa]

Have you saved all your personal music and photo's whatever to a backup?
Try making every boot device the CD/DVD drive, sometimes the BIOS will still try and boot from the harddrive first and you have to force it to boot from the CD/DVD drive.

[cday710]

RJ - making every boot device the CD/DVD drive did the trick as it brought me to a new screen.

Now I get "Disk Boot Failure, Insert System Disk and Press Enter"

Unfortunately, the system disk is in there...

Hmm.. This is a Windows 7 Image I burned to disc. I did it on a Mac, which I'm not too familiar with. I might have done it incorrectly. I'm going to try to burn another image.

[jdeb]

system specs please: make and models, power siupply, motherboard, ram, video


1. I would check the power supply connections carefully, if correctly seated and connected.
2. check the ram one stick at a time
3. try another known working power supply

[Nuclear Krusader]

Originally Posted by cday710 RJ - making every boot device the CD/DVD drive did the trick as it brought me to a new screen. Now I get "Disk Boot Failure, Insert System Disk and Press Enter" Unfortunately, the system disk is in there... Hmm.. This is a Windows 7 Image I burned to disc. I did it on a Mac, which I'm not too familiar with. I might have done it incorrectly. I'm going to try to burn another image.

What do you mean by a Windows 7 Image? Is this a legitimate Windows 7 DVD?

Setting the optical drive as first boot device isn't enough. You have to be ready to "Press any key to boot from the CD..." as soon as it goes past POST. Is it prompting you to do so?

Have you tried unplugging your hard drive and booting from the optical drive?

[quartet-man]

I was thinking the image was a backup of the system made by something like Acronis, but maybe you are on to something, Nuke.

[cday710]

Originally Posted by Nuclear Krusader What do you mean by a Windows 7 Image? Is this a legitimate Windows 7 DVD? Setting the optical drive as first boot device isn't enough. You have to be ready to "Press any key to boot from the CD..." as soon as it goes past POST. Is it prompting you to do so? Have you tried unplugging your hard drive and booting from the optical drive?

This is a legitimate windows 7 dvd - I purchased it online after being dissatisfied with Vista.

I've also tried using an old Windows 95 installation CD with the same results.

I don't get the "press any key to boot from the CD" using either disc.

I've unplugged my hard drive and am trying to boot from the optical drive now.

EDIT: Same results using both CDs "DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER"

[glc]

Either the motherboard or your optical drive you are trying to boot with is defective.

[cday710]

I'm able to get into the BIOS and the computer gets past POST. With that said, it could be a motherboard problem?

If needed, I can start a new thread elsewhere, but how would I go about determining which is truly defective?

[MikeMoss]

Hi

I'm not a hardware guy, so I have no idea how to tell where the problem is but...

I would try and boot the computer to a disk with an operating system on it, like Ultimate
Boot CD or Ubuntu.

If that works and you are able to access your C: drive, I'd save all my data to DVDs or an external hard drive along with address books and favorites and anything else you don't want to lose.

If there is nothing wrong with the motherboard it should boot to the CD at least.
Don't have any thing plugged in you don't need, just the monitor keyboard and mouse.

Once my data was safe I would format the drive and start over.
If it won't boot to a CD then I have no idea.

Mike