replaced mb/ won't boot to nething

[xav8terx]

Ok, so I built a PC for a friend about a year or so ago and now I need some more help . He recently (yesterday) replaced the MB and CPU. AMD RS485M-M is the MB and I’m not sure what CPU he put in (I was at work when this was all done). It won't boot from the floppy, HDD, or the CD-ROM. It will go as far as the screen which asks you to choose normal, safe or last good config and then reboots when you select anything . He is using a HDD from his old Gateway system but it’s the same one we used for the first build about a year ago. It won’t even boot to the floppy so I can't wipe and partition his HDD . I'm 95% sure the HDD is fine because he had it in another system while he was waiting on new parts for this one.

I wasn't the one who actually hooked everything up, but from what I examined it looked in working order. I am certainly a novice but I do know that if everything goes according to plan you should at least be able to get to the cmd prompt. But I can't even get that up . The MB screen shot comes up, it posts, I can config BIOS, but that’s it. Like I said it goes to the screen asking you to choose a start up method and then once you select something it acts like it is doing something but then just restarts and ends up back at the same screen. He replaced his PSU about three months ago so I don't think that is it. He has had his HDD in other systems and it works fine. I don't know what test he has put the Floppy drive under but it is also from his old system. The thing that is getting me is the fact that I also scrapped parts from my old gateway (HDD, Floppy) and has been going strong for the last two years.

Any help would be great. And I would also like to take this time to thank you for the help in the past and to apologize for not letting you know that your tips and suggestions helped me out. Bad forum etiquette and I’m working on that.

[liljim]

what OS is on the hdd?

[xav8terx]

Xp home

[xav8terx]

i also wanted to add that i did remove the Video card to see if that was adding to the problem but it didn't change anything. I aslo swoped the Slave/master settings to see if that was the prob and again same situation. It is just confusing me because i cant even get the floppy to boot. And i did set it to first boot device. And the MB is picking up the HDD drive as the primary. At least according to BIOS. We even swoped HDD to see if that was the prob but nothing changed.

But i did do all this after working 13 hrs on a friday so being sleepy didn't help either. I just told him that i would have to sleep on it and get back to him in the morning.

[liljim]

make sure the floppy is enabled, it may be set as first boot device but it also has to be enabled.Another thought with the floppy is make sure the floppy cable isnt upside down, if the light on the floppy stays on the cable is wrong. Also make sure the bios is seeing the cdrom drive.

[xav8terx]

I will have to go check those. I don't recall if it did see the two devices; just the HDD. I did have hom change the cable setting, but that was this morning and it was over the phone.

What could possibly be makig it restart? Is it the fact that its not seeing a workable device so its cycling back through?

[liljim]

i assume it to be restarting because its trying to boot from the hdd and with a new motherboard its trying to load wrong drivers. If you could get it to boot from the XP disk, theres a 99% chance that a repair install would get it running again. That does leave the 1% chance that you'll have to format and completely reinstall windows. A repair install will wipe out all the drivers and hardware configuration but leave everything else intact but again, theres always that 1%