P67A-UD3 used to boot. Not after rebuild

[pauleden]

Guys,

Long story short, I had to rebuild my P67A-UD3 system after the P67A-UD3-B3 motherboard that was supposed to replace it got damaged. I had broken down the PC into it's bits before I discovered the damage on the new mobo. Doh!

I've rebuilt the system on the original P67A-UD3 mobo, exactly as it was before, but it won't boot. It has an intel SSD and Samsung HDD. BIOS sees the SSD, where the OS is, but apparently parts of the OS or required drivers are on the HDD because it fails with "DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER" after POST.

BIOS isn't seeing the HDD, even though it's all cabled up and connected. I| can't remember which SATA cable was connected to which port on the motherboard - is this likely to be the problem?

I noted down all the BIOS settings and they are the same as they were before. Somehow (I think there's a recovery option) BIOS went back to version F3. I've got it to F4 via Q-Flash so that it recognises my 2600K, but that's as far as it'll go.

Any thoughts?

[Dark Mantis]

Have you told the BIOS which is your hard drive to boot from ? It sounds like it is not looking in the right place. You will also need to connect the SSD to the SATA3_0 port as it is the fastest.

[pauleden]

Ugh.

Didn't get a chance to verify that. Now it's worse.

On power button press, the fans spin up for a second then shut down. They spin up, then shut down. Rinse and repeat until I pull the PSU lead.

[Dark Mantis]

Try clearing the CMOS then. Please follow these instructions exactly.

Remove the power cable from the mains supply and then press the power switch on the case for a few seconds just to drain any residual energy in the PSU capacitors.

Once done remove the motherboard battery for at least ten minutes before replacing it.
 
Next plug back into the mains supply and boot.
 
You will now need to enter the BIOS by pressing DEL and load Opimised BIOS Defaults.

Make any other changes to the BIOS settings to suit your self like disabling the floppy drive, disabling the full screen logo and making the HDD the primary boot device and then press F10 to save and exit.

[pauleden]

Still doing it. I left the battery out for half an hour. Do I have to short out those CMOS reset pins while doing a CMOS clear?

Those 4 little LEDs just above the memory slots... only the green one nearest the memory slot lights up and it only stays on for the second the fans spin. All 4 of these used to light up and stay on.

[Dark Mantis]

It certainly doesn't hurt to short the clear CMOS pins whilst you are doing it although it should work without as long as it is given enough time to get rid of any power left in the circuit.

As for the LEDs they should all illluminate at POST and then go out as POST completes leaving just the one green LED alight near the bottom of the motherboard near the PCIE slot.

[pauleden]

Ah success!

I broke the machine down again into parts and rebuilt it. It began to POST again. Don't know what was breaking it, maybe a bad cable connection.

Anyway, having got it back again, I cleared CMOS and checked boot priority, but no joy. Still

"DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER"

BIOS still wasn't seeing the HDD but it was working. I could hear it spinning up, so I changed its cable and plugged it into a different SATA port on the motherboard and it started working again! Don't know if it was a cable that got broken while I was breaking it down and rebuilding it or if the drive HAS to be plugged into the same port as it was when the OS was installed.

Many thanks for your help on this Easter Sunday, DM. Have an egg on me.

[Dark Mantis]

Thanks, Yum!

Yes the drive has to be installed into the same port that it is expected to be on. If you setup the OS on one port you cannot then just swap the drive to another port.

[pauleden]

Excellent. Noted for when the B3 motherboard turns up and I start this all over again.