Yesterday I bought a new motherboard. I have connected to the motherboard a 2.2 GHz pentium 4 processor, 2 hard drives (80 and 120 GB), a dvd player and a DVD/CD re-writer. Everything is showing up in the BIOS ok.

I installed Windows XP (made no changes or installed any software after installing) and rebooted the PC. When I rebooted the PC after the initial P.O.S.T the PC hangs for about 1 - 2 minutes and I get the following error message

Hardware/profile configuration menu

This menu allows you to select a hardware profile when windows is started

If your system is not starting correctly, then you may switch to a previous system configuration, important: system configuration changes made since the last successful start up will be discarded.

Profile 1


If I choose profile 1 (the only choice) windows loads normally.


I tried reformatting again and I still get the same boot up problems.

Here's one link for the you are not alone catagory (no solution):

http://www.winguides.com/forums/show...sed&sb=5&part=

Here is a description of what is happening:

http://www.microsoft.com/resources/d...c_str_gtst.asp

I did see a 2k issue describing corruption in Ntldr & or Ntdetect.com

One shot in the dark is make sure the date & time are correct in the BIOS & that you installed all the motherboard drivers / firmware / etc.

Been searching for a while & have only found the above. Will keep an eye out.

I have just noticed something. The problem only occurs when I reboot the PC. If I do a cold boot of the PC it does not happen?

I have just noticed another problem if I restart the PC.



I downloaded powermax by maxtor to check my hard drives. It creates bootable floppy. If I restart the PC I get an error message that says can not load DOS! any key to retry.



If I do a cold boot of the PC the power max loads ok. If I then do a Ctrl + Alt + Delete and leave the floppy in I get the error message can not load DOS! any key to retry.



So it seems all my problems happen when I do Start > turn off computer > restart. If I do a cold boot of the PC or shut down the PC completely and on put it on again I do not get the problems?



The start up problems also only occur if I do a restart.

Somebody has suggested it may be the power supply? The motherboard case and power supply are all brand new

Sorry I forgot to say the case, power supply, motherboard and memory are all brand new.

Curious ... good detective work!
Leading me to suspect that the motherboard needs to be reset / powered off ... otherwise it is detecting some issue.

Check all the power connectors ... try resetting the CMOS ... what is the make & model of the board?

Any other issues?

Did you check the time & date? Do you have the latest BIOS?

Originally Posted by jephree

Curious ... good detective work!
Leading me to suspect that the motherboard needs to be reset / powered off ... otherwise it is detecting some issue.

Check all the power connectors ... try resetting the CMOS ... what is the make & model of the board?

Any other issues?

Did you check the time & date? Do you have the latest BIOS?

Sorry I have not had time to check all that yet. I work nights (3 days on and 3 days off). At the moment I am in work and can not for the life of me remember the name of the motherboard.

As it is a brand new motherboard I don't really want to flash the BIOS.

I have tried stripping the PC down to one 120 GB hard drive, floppy disk, processor and one 512k memory stick. I am still getting the same problems.

I thought I had the PC sorted. I stripped the PC right down. Reformatted the hard drive and added each device 1 by 1. I managed to get it 1 hard drive, 512k memory, 2.2Ghz processor, DVD player, DVD writer, 3 PCI cards and a Geforce fx 5200 AGP card. Everything was working ok. The moment I added my second hard drive to the equation I got he boot up problems again. I have an external hard drive that I use for back up purposes. I tried installing that as the second hard drive and the PC was still stable and booting up ok.


So I assumed the second hard drive was at fault. I removed the second hard drive and put it back in my external hard drive case. I then went out and bought a new 120 GB hard drive.


I put the new hard drive in the PC as a slave (so I now have two 120 GB hard drives in the PC) The PC is now booting up ok but Windows has trouble finding
the DVD player and DVD writer (forgot to check if the bios is recognising them). Sometimes when I boot up windows the DVD player and DVD writer are showing. Next time I boot up time only one may be showing. The next time I boot up none may be showing etc.

I am now wondering if it may be the IDE controllers on the motherboard at fault (the IDE cables are brand new)?
Could it be the hard drive? I have been installing XP on the same hard drive all during the problems (but it is a brand new hard drive).

I know you've expressed reservations but my overwhelming reaction to that behavior is to flash the BIOS.

Especially if the BIOS is not detecting the drives.

Also: in the bios setup are you set to Auto-detect drives?

Also: when you install the 2nd hard drive are you running the manufacturers' install program?
& or formatting?

Also are all your jumpers set to Cable Select?

When in Windows how do the IDE Controllers show in the Device Manager?