shibbyy05
asked on
New Video Card = New Problems
I just recently installed a new video card to my system. To be exact, it's a nvidia gtx 260 to replace my current 8600 sli setup. To put the card in I had to remove a few of my ide cables(ancient I know) from the board which were my hard drive and dvd-rw. Everything went fine and it booted up like normal but not I'm getting an error "ntldr is missing press ctrl, alt, delete to restart".
Long story short, I ended up inserting my Windows XP disk to reformat but I couldn't select a partition to install Windows XP on, almost like my hard drives aren't being read from. When I go into BIOS I can see the my hard drives are at least detected so I'm not sure what the hold up is.
I recently got a new hard drive which I'm planning on installing today but I have to grab some sata cables today, so I'm hoping that the new sata drive is going to be detected so I can clean boot.
Any reason as to why this is happening? Is the new hardware the issue or maybe even the IDE port is not working properly anymore?
ECS 650i SLI Motherboard
Nvidia 260 GTX
600 Watt Power Supply
Long story short, I ended up inserting my Windows XP disk to reformat but I couldn't select a partition to install Windows XP on, almost like my hard drives aren't being read from. When I go into BIOS I can see the my hard drives are at least detected so I'm not sure what the hold up is.
I recently got a new hard drive which I'm planning on installing today but I have to grab some sata cables today, so I'm hoping that the new sata drive is going to be detected so I can clean boot.
Any reason as to why this is happening? Is the new hardware the issue or maybe even the IDE port is not working properly anymore?
ECS 650i SLI Motherboard
Nvidia 260 GTX
600 Watt Power Supply
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Now don't go getting mad at me for suggesting these things. But they HAVE happened to me before.
I don't think that the new video card caused the boot problems you saw. More likely when you moved the IDE cables, one or more pins inside the ribbon cable have broken. Try some new IDE cables if you want to try to recover your IDE hard drive configuration.
Another issue you will run into with the new SATA drive is that Windows XP will not see it on the install without the help of the SATA drivers that came with the motherboard. Most likely you got a 3.5" floppy disk with the motherboard that has the drivers, or at least on the CD/DVD that came with the board there is a tool on there to MAKE a floppy that has the SATA drivers on it. You will need these drivers on a floppy to do the install otherwise you will have to build a Slipstream installer. Not a convenient option, but the only way to do it for people without a floppy drive. Hopefully you do have a floppy drive.
Anyway, try new IDE cables to see if that fixes your old IDE drive problem. However, I think you'll like the new SATA drive better.
I don't think that the new video card caused the boot problems you saw. More likely when you moved the IDE cables, one or more pins inside the ribbon cable have broken. Try some new IDE cables if you want to try to recover your IDE hard drive configuration.
Another issue you will run into with the new SATA drive is that Windows XP will not see it on the install without the help of the SATA drivers that came with the motherboard. Most likely you got a 3.5" floppy disk with the motherboard that has the drivers, or at least on the CD/DVD that came with the board there is a tool on there to MAKE a floppy that has the SATA drivers on it. You will need these drivers on a floppy to do the install otherwise you will have to build a Slipstream installer. Not a convenient option, but the only way to do it for people without a floppy drive. Hopefully you do have a floppy drive.
Anyway, try new IDE cables to see if that fixes your old IDE drive problem. However, I think you'll like the new SATA drive better.
Hi shibbyy05,
It could be a couple of things, it could be a faulty or bad video card, have you tried a different card? It can also be bad cable(s) that you are using, you said that you formatted your hard drive, are the hard drive(s) SATA drives? If thats the case, Windows can't detect your hard drive because it doesn't support sata drives, you would need to get the AHCI driver for XP to detect the hard drive. Also you said that you can see the hard drive in the BIOS but not through Windows XP, again you need the AHCI drivers or F6 floppy drivers. The reason that your hard drive can be seen in the BIOS is because it's reading from the BIOS code, your hard drive is there but not through Windows. Try switching to IDE in the BIOS instead of AHCI and see if Windows can detect the hard drive for a install.
It could be a couple of things, it could be a faulty or bad video card, have you tried a different card? It can also be bad cable(s) that you are using, you said that you formatted your hard drive, are the hard drive(s) SATA drives? If thats the case, Windows can't detect your hard drive because it doesn't support sata drives, you would need to get the AHCI driver for XP to detect the hard drive. Also you said that you can see the hard drive in the BIOS but not through Windows XP, again you need the AHCI drivers or F6 floppy drivers. The reason that your hard drive can be seen in the BIOS is because it's reading from the BIOS code, your hard drive is there but not through Windows. Try switching to IDE in the BIOS instead of AHCI and see if Windows can detect the hard drive for a install.
ASKER
It was the IDE cables. The ribbon ripped in a few spots that I didn't notice. They must have ripped when I was trying to maneuver the giant of a video card.
Done that a few times it why i went to sata as soon as i could.
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