edfoley
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Boot gets past BIOS, but then nothing but a blinking cursor
Background: Win XP, two 160GB IDE HDs on the primiary IDE channel. One of the 160s (drive 0) contains OS & data, the other (drive 1) I had been using for backups only and can be considered to be empty. The PC ran trouble free prior to this incident.
It began when I set up a PCI RAID controller card. I took drives 0 and 1 off the primary channel and put them on the raid card, both master on each of the two available channels. I configured them as a RAID set, but when I attempted to boot into them (it) I got past the BIOS fine and following that just got a black screen with a blinking cursor in the upper left.
I pulled the RAID card out and put in the drives as they were before all this started, on the primary IDE channel, jumpering same as before, etc. Same result, blinking cursor.
I tried a 200GB drive that is a known-good clone of drive 0, and put that on the primary IDE channel, by itself, jumpered correctly. BIOS saw it fine, then I got the blinking cursor.
I took the known-good 200GB drive and put it in a USB enclosure. I configured the BIOS to boot first into the USB enclosure drive (it was listed there). Nothing. Tried it again, and interestingly, I got past the BIOS and it began to load the OS from the USB drive. However, as the Windows gui started to come up, the PC spontaneously rebooted. No boot attempts after that resulted in anything but the blinking cursor. The USB enclosure drive is no longer listed as an option under the BIOS boot order menu.
Any ideas?
It began when I set up a PCI RAID controller card. I took drives 0 and 1 off the primary channel and put them on the raid card, both master on each of the two available channels. I configured them as a RAID set, but when I attempted to boot into them (it) I got past the BIOS fine and following that just got a black screen with a blinking cursor in the upper left.
I pulled the RAID card out and put in the drives as they were before all this started, on the primary IDE channel, jumpering same as before, etc. Same result, blinking cursor.
I tried a 200GB drive that is a known-good clone of drive 0, and put that on the primary IDE channel, by itself, jumpered correctly. BIOS saw it fine, then I got the blinking cursor.
I took the known-good 200GB drive and put it in a USB enclosure. I configured the BIOS to boot first into the USB enclosure drive (it was listed there). Nothing. Tried it again, and interestingly, I got past the BIOS and it began to load the OS from the USB drive. However, as the Windows gui started to come up, the PC spontaneously rebooted. No boot attempts after that resulted in anything but the blinking cursor. The USB enclosure drive is no longer listed as an option under the BIOS boot order menu.
Any ideas?
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Increasing point value. I need to get this resolved today ;)
That approach would have worked if you had another drive to boot from - you can't boot from an array that you didn't install an OS on. I know you tried to boot from the 200GB drive: you may not have cloned it correctly. Using Ghost, a disk-to-disk copy should have given you a bootable drive. If you didn't do this, you can try fixing it by booting with the CD into the recovery console and typing FIXMBR, and then FIXBOOT. Once that drive can boot, then you can copy to the RAID array, and then disconnect the 200GB drive.
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I think I wasn't clear. The 200GB drive is known-good -- It is a ghosted clone of the 0 (the original boot) drive with the OS/data on it. Before today, I could put that 200GB drive on the primary IDE channel as master with no slave, and it would boot right up, no problem. I could put it in the USB enclosure, tell the BIOS to boot that drive first, and it would boot, no problem. It is definitly cloned correctly. As per your last sentence, that was my plan, once the raid array was set up -- to put the 200GB drive on the IDE primary channel and copy it to the RAID array, then disconnect it.
I included the stuff about the attempted RAID install as background. But I can figure out the RAID install another time. I guess my primary concern here is, when the RAID card is removed, why can't I boot anymore from the known-good 200GB drive on the primary IDE channel, as was the case before I attempted the RAID install? Thanks for hanging in there with me on this.
I included the stuff about the attempted RAID install as background. But I can figure out the RAID install another time. I guess my primary concern here is, when the RAID card is removed, why can't I boot anymore from the known-good 200GB drive on the primary IDE channel, as was the case before I attempted the RAID install? Thanks for hanging in there with me on this.
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MarkDozier - if that were the case, how would I tell it to boot from the HDD?
Usually, that is specified as a boot option in the BIOS.
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What are the chances this is is happening because when I installed the RAID card I knocked the video card loose? If I did that, would the blinking cursor/failure to boot into Windows logically follow?
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Yes, a USB external enclosure, plus there's a SD card slot in the USB printer that's attached. Why?
pull it and see what happens
you can also try to reset your cmos settings
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Pulling the external usb devices didn't help?
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