When a PC only boots from the hard drive

[daklander]

Sorry if there's something out there on this already, I cannot find anything running a search.
I have an old PC that I want to get PCLOS going on to get my wife a bit of an upgrade.
This an old Compaq Presario S4020WM. XP2400/266 and 1 gig of ram and a 30 gig HD. It was my old music recording PC running WinXP with multiple hard drives and it was very seldom on the 'net, only to transfer files, but is clean of any issues anyway.
I've done extensive Google searches on the issue over the last few days and cannot find a solution so here I am.

I cannot get this thing to boot from anything except the hard drive. I've made all the requisit changes to the boot order in BIOS to no avail. I've set CD and USB as first boot. I've set all orders to the same option. I've shut everything off except the CDROM. If the hard drive is not in the system it gives a no operating system found error message.  I've hit F8, F12 and all the other F keys that are supposed to get you to a boot order screen. Same thing.
The plan was to run Puppy live to resize and partition the drive and then install PCLOS or PCLOS LDXE.

Suggestions?

[Old-Polack]

Sorry if there's something out there on this already, I cannot find anything running a search.
I have an old PC that I want to get PCLOS going on to get my wife a bit of an upgrade.
This an old Compaq Presario S4020WM. XP2400/266 and 1 gig of ram and a 30 gig HD. It was my old music recording PC running WinXP with multiple hard drives and it was very seldom on the 'net, only to transfer files, but is clean of any issues anyway.
I've done extensive Google searches on the issue over the last few days and cannot find a solution so here I am.

I cannot get this thing to boot from anything except the hard drive. I've made all the requisit changes to the boot order in BIOS to no avail. I've set CD and USB as first boot. I've set all orders to the same option. I've shut everything off except the CDROM. If the hard drive is not in the system it gives a no operating system found error message.  I've hit F8, F12 and all the other F keys that are supposed to get you to a boot order screen. Same thing.
The plan was to run Puppy live to resize and partition the drive and then install PCLOS or PCLOS LDXE.

Suggestions?

The first thing I would check are the cable connections, both data and power, by unplugging and replugging several times, being sure they are firmly seated when done. The data cable needs to be checked at both ends, at the device and at the motherboard. While inside the machine, assuming the devices are IDE/PATA, I'd also check that each device is properly set as master or slave, not cable select.

[horusfalcon]

A quick question:  since this machine is rather old, are you booting from a motherboard-integrated drive controller or from a controller mounted in a slot?  If it's a slot-mounted controller, it may have a BIOS extension that is overriding the system's BIOS and affecting the boot order selections you made.  It's kinda high and outside, but might be part of your problem.

Later On,
D

[daklander]

......

The first thing I would check are the cable connections, both data and power, by unplugging and replugging several times, being sure they are firmly seated when done. The data cable needs to be checked at both ends, at the device and at the motherboard. While inside the machine, assuming the devices are IDE/PATA, I'd also check that each device is properly set as master or slave, not cable select.

Thank you. I've done that several times but will run one more check. All drives do work as intended, other than the system recognizing them as first boot priority.

[daklander]

A quick question:  since this machine is rather old, are you booting from a motherboard-integrated drive controller or from a controller mounted in a slot?  If it's a slot-mounted controller, it may have a BIOS extension that is overriding the system's BIOS and affecting the boot order selections you made.  It's kinda high and outside, but might be part of your problem.

Later On,
D

Hi, it is the stock motherboard integrated controller.

Thanks.

[melodie]

Hi,
Is there a floppy drive on your machine ?

[daklander]

Hi,
Is there a floppy drive on your machine ?

Yes

[Just18]

Sorry if there's something out there on this already, I cannot find anything running a search.
I have an old PC that I want to get PCLOS going on to get my wife a bit of an upgrade.
This an old Compaq Presario S4020WM. XP2400/266 and 1 gig of ram and a 30 gig HD. It was my old music recording PC running WinXP with multiple hard drives and it was very seldom on the 'net, only to transfer files, but is clean of any issues anyway.
I've done extensive Google searches on the issue over the last few days and cannot find a solution so here I am.

I cannot get this thing to boot from anything except the hard drive. I've made all the requisit changes to the boot order in BIOS to no avail. I've set CD and USB as first boot. I've set all orders to the same option. I've shut everything off except the CDROM. If the hard drive is not in the system it gives a no operating system found error message.  I've hit F8, F12 and all the other F keys that are supposed to get you to a boot order screen. Same thing.
The plan was to run Puppy live to resize and partition the drive and then install PCLOS or PCLOS LDXE.

Suggestions?

You did not mention having tried the following keys to get a boot device list
Del
Esc

Also if you can find a copy of the manual for that motherboard, the required key should be given.

As melodie has indicated it may be possible to use a floppy and transfer the booting to other media such as DVD or USB drive.

I would try to get hold of the manual first and try some other keys, no matter how odd it might seem 

[daklander]

........
You did not mention having tried the following keys to get a boot device list
Del
Esc

Also if you can find a copy of the manual for that motherboard, the required key should be given.

As melodie has indicated it may be possible to use a floppy and transfer the booting to other media such as DVD or USB drive.

I would try to get hold of the manual first and try some other keys, no matter how odd it might seem 

Thanks.
I forgot to mention esc will get me to a boot menu where I can select the CDROM and other boot options but we still go right to the hard drive and boot XP.

[melodie]

Hi,

Can you burn this image to a floppy ? If you can, try it.
http://tyruiop.eu/~melodie/Downloads/FloppyImage/plop_floppy_boot.img

Once you have the image, from the directory where you have it open a console, type
ls plop_floppy_boot.img to be sure you have it in the same directory as you are located, from the console point of view, then if it's ok, type : dd if=plop_floppy_boot.img of=/dev/fl0 if the floppy has for device name "fl0". Else, it could be just "/dev/floppy". You may look in /dev directory to see the closest name for it.

If you hear the floppy doing lots of noise, then it's good. ^^

 Insert floppy and usb stick ready to boot in the old machine, select the choice to boot from floppy and see if that works better.

What is plop ? It's a non free boot manager written in assembler : http://www.plop.at/en/bootmanager.html

[Just18]

........
You did not mention having tried the following keys to get a boot device list
Del
Esc

Also if you can find a copy of the manual for that motherboard, the required key should be given.

As melodie has indicated it may be possible to use a floppy and transfer the booting to other media such as DVD or USB drive.

I would try to get hold of the manual first and try some other keys, no matter how odd it might seem 

Thanks.
I forgot to mention esc will get me to a boot menu where I can select the CDROM and other boot options but we still go right to the hard drive and boot XP.

So, you can get to the boot options .....  that is good.
Then your selection is ignored ... 

That brings you back to BIOS settings.
Obviously the CDROM is recognised as present by BIOS if it is listed as a boot option.

So, is there more than one place in the BIOS which manages that.
Quite often there is a means to prevent floppy, CD, USB devices being used to boot. It is a security measure to prevent unwanted booting.

Is it possible there is such a setting in this BIOS which is doing this?

[kjpetrie]

Lateral thinking - Take the hard drive out, put it in another machine, and install pclos to it there. Then transfer it back to the original machine. You might have to fiddle a bit to get the right graphics driver installed, but it should be possible to get started that way.

[daklander]

Lateral thinking - Take the hard drive out, put it in another machine, and install pclos to it there. Then transfer it back to the original machine. You might have to fiddle a bit to get the right graphics driver installed, but it should be possible to get started that way.

That's a last resort. The last time I did that it was a horrible experience and I may as well have done that with a Windows drive.

I've got to dig around my junk and see if I have a good floppy laying around to try melodies' suggestion.

[Rudge]

daklander, how did you confirm that you have a valid, working and readable CD/DVD ?

(I am referring to the media, not the device)   

[daklander]

daklander, how did you confirm that you have a valid, working and readable CD/DVD ?

(I am referring to the media, not the device)   

Simply be inserting the media in a CDROM drive on a different computer and booting it.
Also, I've had them booted before and installed from the media. It is only this particular computer that has an issue.