Reformating my brothers comp... drive not reading

J

Jawn

New Member
Hi all...

Usually when I reformated my computers, I simply put the CD in, reboot and it prompted me to press the space bar if I wanted to reformat.


My brothers comp on the other hand, it doesn't. I went in the bios and changed the CD drive to boot first, and various other combinations... it worked but when I get to format it says it doesn't detect my hard drive so I had to go back to the "Floppy, hard drive, CD" order to get it to actually boot.

But like I said... when it's in that order, I don't get the "Press the space bar to boot from CD" prompt. I also tried pressing F6 and holding and that's no go.

Any ideas what's going on here?

Thank you very much for your time!

Specs incase you're wondering:
Mainboard : ASUSTeK Computer Inc. K8VSEDX
Chipset : VIA K8T800 (VT8383)
Processor : AMD Athlon 64 3400+ @ 2200 MHz
Physical Memory : 1024 MB (2 x 512 DDR-SDRAM )
Video Card : Matrox Graphics Inc Parhelia
Hard Disk : WDC (80 GB)
DVD-Rom Drive : LITE-ON COMBO SOHC-5232K
Monitor Type : Hansol Electronics - 16 inches
Network Card : Marvell Semiconductor (Was: Galileo Technology Ltd) Yukon 88E8001/8003/8010 PCI Gigabit Ethernet Controller (Copper)
Operating System : Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition 5.01.2600 Service Pack 2
DirectX : Version 9.0c
 
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When the bios page appears is there a key assigned to "Boot device" or something like that? On mine it says F3 I think. It lets you choose which device to boot from at current and doesnt change your boot order.
 
g25racer said:
Huh Have you checked the wires on the cd drive to make sure its plugged in and working?
Click to expand...

F3 doesn't work either.

Yes, the CD drive is working properly because when I inserted the CD while the computer was on the desktop, I got the "install other components, check system compatibilty" etc.

Thanks for your help.
 
No problem. Im sure someone will come along with ideas as to what it is. Wait until tomorrow and im sure there will be a couple of responses to your situation.
 
Are you running SATA hard drives or running raid? Chances are you need to install the SATA controller or raid driver at the F6 prompt.
 
johnb35 said:
Are you running SATA hard drives or running raid? Chances are you need to install the SATA controller or raid driver at the F6 prompt.
Click to expand...

Good chances he's running SATA. I'll try the F6 prompt. That's wierd though... I'm running SATA and I didn't have to do that when I reformated.
 
He has a very old motherboard, you most likely do not. Newer ones don't require the SATA driver, like the older ones do.
 
im not accusing you of anything but is your Xp or vista cd legit?

because alot of people download and burn it illegaly to cd and try to install but they have not burned it properly.:D
 
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