# Computer won't recognize any bootable devices, unable to access bios



## cmdrbond (Feb 25, 2008)

What you're dealing with:
Intel d945psn motherboard
Intel Pentium D 820 (2.8GHz) OC 3.1GHz
(x4) A-Data Technology DDR2 PC4300 - 1024MB
GeForce 6800 XT 256 MB
Maxtor 200 GB HD
XP Home SP2

What happened:
My computer all of a sudden started to restart while windows was booting. A few times it made it to the desktop, but after awhile would reboot. Eventually after several goes, it gave up completely and a message said "no bootable devices found". 

I tried reconnecting IDE cables to no avail. I entered the bios (via pressing F2 during startup), and set the boot priority to CD-ROM. I then tried booting from the windows XP cd, but it would not recognize any bootable devices. I then thought it was a hard drive problem, as my hard drive could not be seen by the bios. However, I hooked it into an external hard drive case I had and it worked via usb to my laptop. I even booted from the hard drive via usb on the laptop (but it didn't get past loading the bars across the bottom of the screen during boot up). So the hard drive works.

Now, I went back into the bios and changed a few of the boot options around (disabled ethernet boot, usb boot, and floppy boot). I made sure to keep optical devices enabled. However, neither the cd-rom with the win xp dic nor the hard drive are recognized as bootable devices. I also removed the cmos battery and reinstalled it. No change.

After a while of rebooting, reconnecting IDE cables, and changing bios boot preferences, the computer will now no longer allow me to access the bios via the F2 key. Every single time I start the computer, no matter the configuration of drives and cables, I get:

"A bootable device has not been detected.
Please refer to the Product Guide at http://support.intel.com/support/motherboards/desktop/"

following that website points me to my motherboard:
http://support.intel.com/support/motherboards/desktop/D945PSN/

But I cannot flash the new bios, as I have no way to boot anything.


PLEASE, if you have any relevant solutions or even partial solutions, let me know.


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## smz (Mar 12, 2007)

Hi,

By chance is the controller card for the hard drive(s) 3rd party?
Need to make sure it doesn't require a driver floppy to access the hard drive controller. The error won't boot is very general and pertains to many conditions. Certainly lf you were running the machine and it suddenly quit. It will more than likely have some sort of corruption if the disk was being written to at the time.

As for being locked out of bios. Sounds like you went to town in that bios. I would unplug every usb device and unneeded device accept the keyboard and mouse. then unplug the power to your P/S and locate in your manual where the CMOS reset is. You will short that out for at least 5 seconds then put the jumper back to it's "normal" position.

Normally bio's don't fail unless the board is fried, something is shorted something out on the p/s and perhaps a device shorting something out like a usb drive which has happened to me. that is while I suggest the cold boot with only you keyboard and mouse. if you really want to narrow it down. unplug the hard drive, cd rom, etc this will turn this into a bare bones situation. Last but not least an option to explore if you don't get any results is get the power supply switch out of the loop and locate the power switch jumpers on your motherboard and short them out for one second.

I know a lot of info at once. don't do all the above at once but try a couple and report back.

Scott



cmdrbond said:


> What you're dealing with:
> Intel d945psn motherboard
> Intel Pentium D 820 (2.8GHz) OC 3.1GHz
> (x4) A-Data Technology DDR2 PC4300 - 1024MB
> ...


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## cmdrbond (Feb 25, 2008)

smz said:


> Hi,
> 
> By chance is the controller card for the hard drive(s) 3rd party?
> Need to make sure it doesn't require a driver floppy to access the hard drive controller.


Um, I'm not sure. Would this sort of thing go bad all of a sudden? And I don't have a floppy drive. I just know the hard drive does work, but the bios won't recognize it or the dvd.



smz said:


> As for being locked out of bios. Sounds like you went to town in that bios. I would unplug every usb device and unneeded device accept the keyboard and mouse. then unplug the power to your P/S and locate in your manual where the CMOS reset is. You will short that out for at least 5 seconds then put the jumper back to it's "normal" position.


Ah, I hadn't used the jumper. Sweet, I can now access the bios, but doesn't recognize my hard drive or dvd though.


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## cmdrbond (Feb 25, 2008)

OK, I have updated the bios using a usb flashdrive. The hard drive and dvd are STILL not recognized.


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## cmdrbond (Feb 25, 2008)

smz: I'm not familiar with controller cards, but my IDE cables are going directly into my mobo. I'm thinking if that IDE connection is fried, maybe I need a new controller, like this:
http://www.etech4sale.com/PCS_IDE_Controller_PCI_ATA_/partinfo-id-1162.html

Would that work?


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## cmdrbond (Feb 25, 2008)

Just an interesting sidenote: I tried booting my harddrive through the external usb enclosure, but it keeps restarting when the windows xp splash screen shows for about 1 second. I even tried safemode, but it also restarts.


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## oldmn (Oct 16, 2005)

One thing you have not mentioned have you tried your system without the OC, some components do not handle the OC well.


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## cmdrbond (Feb 25, 2008)

oldmn said:


> One thing you have not mentioned have you tried your system without the OC, some components do not handle the OC well.


Yes, I disabled the OC - normal specs now.


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## smz (Mar 12, 2007)

I know first hand that Overclocking can sometimes cause more trouble then it's worth. Glad you got some of your access restored.

Now of course when you clear the cmos, the ide/sata settings may need to be restored to the config you are using. make sure the bios settings are in auto detect mode. And again with the last post about overclocking. Make this baby stock.

I have an Intel E6400. If I clock over 2.5ghz, I lose all access to my SATA DVD, if I go over 2.66ghz at boot, the hard drives are not recognized.

However, how is this for a twist. If I left my original configuration in there which was an Adaptec 29160 using only U160 drives and a 50pin dvd drive, I could clock that thing to 3ghz and it would boot. but Sata/IDE, don't like that clock rate.

My memory is rated at 800mhz 4-4-4-12 @ 2.1v and is surely up to the challenge of a higher clock rate, but not every component is the same on every computer.

Hopeflly you have some sort of news to report after this graveyard post in the USA.

SMZ



oldmn said:


> One thing you have not mentioned have you tried your system without the OC, some components do not handle the OC well.


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## cmdrbond (Feb 25, 2008)

Partial success! I finally got the machine to boot into WINDOWS! I left the cmos battery out overnight, changed the IDE cable, set the HD jumper to CS, and it worked. 

However, it randomly crashes at various points, from the bootup sequence to after windows has completely loaded. For example, the first time it worked I went to connect to the wireless internet; when I selected my network and pressed connect, it restarted. It then restarted during the boot sequence; the following time loaded windows and crashed within a minute without me touching anything. 

I'm thinking I have a dieing mother board.


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## cmdrbond (Feb 25, 2008)

Just a thought; could this be the power supply by any chance? It is emitting a high pitch; I particularly notice it when the machine is powered down, but still plugged in.


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## oldmn (Oct 16, 2005)

It sounds like your power supply may on it way out.
I would definitely look for another.
Here is some good info on Power supplys


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## smz (Mar 12, 2007)

That as one aspect you are experiencing is a supply on it's way out. Could be crashing when their a drop of voltage to a particular component(s), hard to guess. But don't make the mistake I used to make. Don't get the el cheapo supply from down the street. If you can afford it now, save up for something with quality. Determine what size you need and also factor in a little bit of future expansion in the mix, especially if you plan on going SLI for instance.

This review from Tom's hardware is 2.5 years old but still holds water when showing what to look for when shopping. Good luck!

Scott

http://www.tomshardware.com/2005/07/11/stress_test/
and
http://www.tomshardware.com/2005/02/28/strong_showing/


cmdrbond said:


> Just a thought; could this be the power supply by any chance? It is emitting a high pitch; I particularly notice it when the machine is powered down, but still plugged in.


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## cmdrbond (Feb 25, 2008)

Ok I ordered a new PSU (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817341002), some arctic silver 5 (for re-seating the HSF), and a new IDE cable (the one I'm currently using is extremely short). I'll report back once the Newegg shipment arrives and I've fixed her up.


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## smz (Mar 12, 2007)

WOW, you went for the OCZ. Good luck. That's a large price to pay for a company with their reputation. Though if their power supplies are better than their ram, you might be ok. It's still considered a "brand name" supply.

700W will get you by quite nicely.

Though for a bit less. You could have gotten this killer Antec on sale. It's a 650W vs 700W but impressive nonetheless. I have (2) Antec Trio 550W supplies.










Later,
SMZ

Note: OCZ bashing is only from personal experience. There may be plenty of team members on here with good luck from them. I do wish you the best of luck. It will blow away what you have now for sure.



cmdrbond said:


> Ok I ordered a new PSU (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817341002), some arctic silver 5 (for re-seating the HSF), and a new IDE cable (the one I'm currently using is extremely short). I'll report back once the Newegg shipment arrives and I've fixed her up.


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## cmdrbond (Feb 25, 2008)

The OCZ GameXStream has good reviews and it has great bang for my buck; it was on sale with a rebate - 149.99 -$15 sale -$30 rebate = $104.99. 4 12 V Rails and more connections than I need. Plus it was recommended on tsf: http://www.techsupportforum.com/f210/power-supply-information-and-selection-192217.html
It's under Power Desktop Computer Class. Incidentally, so is the Antec 650 Trio you're talking about.


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## cmdrbond (Feb 25, 2008)

The Newegg shipment arrived today. I took the entire motherboard out, as I wanted to get a clean mount for the HSF using the arctic silver 5 I just bought. Also, it was easier to fit the new PSU in. While I was at it, I cleaned a lot of the dust out of the case and especially off the fins of my Zalman HSF and GPU fans. They were nasty. At any rate, I booted into windows and checked my temperatures. My CPU rang in at 40C, which is one of the lower temperatures I've ever had. The GPU was around 44C.

HOWEVER, the computer STILL restarts itself at random times.

Summary:
-Not the PSU; new 700W power supply
-Not the memory, as I checked using memtest86
-Not the CPU temperature, as it is running 40C without even "settling in" with the new AS5

Is it possible for the motherboard to act in such a manner? Could there just be a short somewhere?


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## smz (Mar 12, 2007)

are you running any software from the motherboard maker that monitors temperatures and fan speeds? Some bios have auto shut off options which is not the case here but if you are building up some heat in some way, perhaps you have a component in your machine randomly failing which would explain the restart vs shutdown as you are not hitting the shutdown temperature but could be triggering another component failing. At this point I would more than likely rule out any fault of power problems.

Though if it were my machine one of two steps I would take. Backup your drive and repartition and format it with a new install of the OS and see if this problem continues. If you don't want to go that route, then you can start turning your machine into a barebones computer. basically disconnecting anything not needed for booting. excess ram, extra hard drives, onboard video should be tried if using a 3rd party card, etc.

One last thing that I don't think you've explored is the BSOD automatic restart option. Most computers don't even let you see that screen, it just restarts. If you want to see if you have a BSOD problem, follow this simple procedure. I promise it won't hurt a bit and won't have any effect on this problem. It won't make it better and it won't make it worse. Just can aid in diagnosing the issue if it's generating a BSOD.

OK, you are running windows xp, hopefully you have admin rights to your own machine, I will assume you do.

OK, this is simple. Click start menu, then control panel. Choose the "system" option. Then look for "advanced" on the above tabs and click it. You will see many choices starting with performance. Look for "startup and recovery" and the button you need to click is "settings" in the Startup and recovery frame. Finally near the bottom of this page you'll see A section with a blue font titled "System Failure" you will probably notice that "Automatically restart" is checked. Kindly, click that checkbox so it is not checked. I don't know how to read the debug information but someone out here might be able to, so right below that. The dropdown menu has 3 options and you should choose "kernal memory dump" but not the one that says 64K.

Click OK, and then OK on the original window and wait for the next random restart. If it is BSOD related the machine is not going to restart anymore. Instead it will give you a Blue Screen of Death that won't go away till you restart the computer manually. At that point, it's possible to narrow things down. Let us know. Below I'm posting a couple screen shots you will encounter once you click system in the control panel.

Good Luck, hope this helps.
SMZ

Step 1 (once you click system in the control panel)








Step 2








Step 3


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## cmdrbond (Feb 25, 2008)

*Problem Solved*

IT WORKS! Thank you everyone for your input in solving this issue.

I took each component out, one by one, until I narrowed it down to the network wireless pci card, a linksys WMP54G wireless PCI card. I first thought it might be the wireless card when I went to adjust the antenna and it restarted (with the new IDE cable to harddrive, and new PSU installed). So I thought it might be causing a short on the mb. Then I remembered that it had also restarted once when I opened up the Linksys Wireless Network Monitor, searched for wireless networks, and clicked connect. Plus I had many instances where the linksys network monitoring software would crash. Curious, I searched the web for the PCI wireless card and I found several people had posted problems. Like these guys:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/quest...ys-wireless-g-pci-card-wmp54g-i-think-311164/
http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/topic34538.html

That’s when I uninstalled the Linksys network monitor and drivers and scoured the web for the newest (I couldn’t find ones that worked on the Linksys website – the install file would not run). 

Now the computer works perfectly fine!

For those having restarting issues, I found this helpful: http://askbobrankin.com/computer_restarts_itself.html


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## smz (Mar 12, 2007)

Moderator let's mark this thread as solved. Thanks for working with us and good luck with the new "reliable" rig.

P.S. I promise I did not go to that site about automatic rebooting solutions. I think that site stole his tips from me, LOL. Actually I never heard of them but it was funny to see the same ideas posted and one of my identical screen shots.

SMZ


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