"chuck" <cciafNOSPAMfone@verizonNOSPAMk.net> wrote in message
news
jBlMHv7KHA.1424@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...
> My mighty backup PC, Asus MB 2.66 Pent 4 running XP Pro
> has died. All of a sudden, as in overnight, it will not
> boot from a HD.
>
> Will boot from floppy and from CD just fine.
>
> Try boot from HD and I get NTLDR not found, I get
> Boot Image not found, or it just recycles to try to
> reboot (unsuccessfully). Never actually boots.
>
> I have flashed bios, replaced the IDE cable, tried
> different HDs.
>
> btw - all HDs boot successfully in a different pc.
>
> What might this be? A bad HD controller on the MoBo??
>
> thanks
>
> chuck
Did not change anything on the computer the night it died? New hard drive,
CD or the like?
It is possible that the Motherboard has died but if your onboard battery is
not holding bios information some computers will give this type of error.
This is an older computer and if the onboard battery has never been replaced
it may be worth a trip to the local store to purchase one. Open the case
with the power off and unplugged to see what type of battery is there. Write
down the number on the battery and take it to the store (Radio Shack, Best
Buy or even Staples type of store should have the battery as well as all Mom
& Pop type of computer stores. The replacement of the battery is easy.
Ensure that the bios is set to boot from the hard drive as the first item in
the list. As the computer is first booting wait for the bios to display the
hard drive statistics on the screen and press the Pause key to stop the boot
process at that point to enable you to read the entire screen. Your system
should identify the drive at least by the manufacturer. If it does not
after replacing the battery (and you said you have tried different HDs with
the same result) then the motherboard or controller is caput. If you happen
to have a PCI IDE controller card laying about you could insert that card to
see if you could get the computer to boot from that card with the HD plugged
into it. It would not be worth a purchase to try that however.
Others may also append additional information here to try and all should be
tried to get the computer working again.
Let us know what happens.