installed new HD and now BIOS wont even work

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adragland

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ok ill try to make this really short story. basically was given a older p3 computer to put a new harddrive in for a family member. put new HD in and cdrom wouldnt boot the XP disk. went into bios and disabled HDD as a boot sequence device. just enabled cd-rom. still wont boot. so i took another computer..put that new HD in it, installed XP on the HD using that computer, then took the new HD (With xp installed now) and put it back in the older one. well when i went to turn on the computer and go into bios to re-enable the HDD as a boot device, the bios wont even load. it just sits there on the screen that says "loading setup" for the bios but nothing ever happens. i tried resetting the jumpers. i even tried putting back the old (untouched) harddrive that was originally in the computer. still does same thing. even took ALL HDs out and tried to enter bios but still does the same thing. so anyone have an idea as to what could be goin on?
 
unplug the computer from the wall and take out the CMOS batt for awhile, and while you're at that - flash the bios. that's where I would start anyways. No idea why that would happen thou
 
how big is this new HD, older BIOS cannot recongize certain amounts of HD space depending on how old it is and what Mode it is in, I wouldn't try flashing the BIOS if he can't even get to it.

I reccomend Clearing the CMOS, then seeing if you can't get to it.
 
its 120gig WD caviar 7200rpm. ive had the cmos battery out for about 10mins now..you think i can try it again now?
 
ok well i just reset the CMOS (i think) i left the battery out for over 10mins and i still have the same problem..wait ok now its showing me the screen that says "press delete to enter setup" and it also says CMOS battery is low..could that be the prob?
 
Yup, I have no idea why I said to flash the bios, I meant clear the cmos but it got lost in translation somewhere between my brain and fingers. There is usually a jumper setting on your motherboard to do it. Look in your manual or find your manual online if you're unsure of how to go about it.
 
the POST probably reports cmos battery low because you removed it and the settings were dumped. my board reports low battery when the settings are lost. well a PIII should be past the relevant barriers for a 120gb hdd unless its a slot1 pIII on an older slot1 PII board. well try this trick if you can get the original hdd working: jumper the original hdd and place it on the channel you want the new one on. auto-detect drives. shutdown. swap the original hdd with the new one and turn it on. thats how i got around a BIOS that "barely" recognises my hdd. by the way, if you installed xp on another rig 99.99999% of the time that hdd won't boot xp on another rig unless you re-install it. check the jumper settings of the cd-rom drive and hdd.
 
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