HD change from master to slave on its own? No bios, no boot menu

I have another thread going in the Windows XP forum which is probably related to my question I'm about to post:

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/t/794157/xp-freezes-momentarily-and-then-unfreezes/

This morning we turned on the XP computer and it was going past the MB splash screen, so I pressed tab to go to the POST screen and saw the attached photo. This machine only has one hard drive, the boot drive. Why is it suddenly showing as a slave instead of the master? Is this what happens when a HD actually fails?

I tried rebooting a few times and noticed that sometimes it doesn't load any more than the EP45... MB model name. Other times, it stops after the memory test and doesn't show the IDE information. I press delete to go into the BIOS and that doesn't even work.

If the hard drive went south, then I'd think I should still be able to go into the BIOS, or pull up a boot menu??

Hope someone can shed some light on this.. As indicated in the other thread, I did order a new SATA IDE drive yesterday on eBay.. I also backed up all the project files, so I'm not concerned if the drive is bad, but now I'm just wondering since bootup is acting strange.

The XP install CD only have a few SATA drivers included. It might be your XP install will not detect the SATA drive. If that happens then you will need to slipstream the SATA driver for the particular chipset your MB has.

If you pull the power to the IDE drive can you now access the BIOS settings?

You mean the new SATA HD I ordered from eBay? This is the one I got: https://www.ebay.com/itm/266678365415 Do you think this one will be a problem for XP? I guess the model is WD2500AAKX

I unplugged the power cable to the existing drive and to my astonishment, no, I was not able to enter the bios! I hit Del, and it says prepare to enter bios, but it never changes from that.

On the first boot, it showed the photo in the first attachment. I tried rebooting, and it didn't go past the MB identification text. Now I'm really confused, bleeping computer!

As far as I'm aware, you don't need a working CMOS battery to be able to boot up and get into the BIOS, it just wouldn't save the date/time.. Is that inaccurate? 

It's not the SATA drive that is the issue. It's the Chipset on the MB that determines what driver needs to be installed. If XP does not detect the drive you will need to slipstream the driver into the XP install CD. You can also download an XP iso with the SATA drivers included. See the first link in this post.

Your MB has the correct F6 SATA driver listed on the support site but the F6 method was meant to be used with a floppy drive. If you don't have an internal floppy drive you will need to slipstream the drive into the XP iso. You can google on how to slipstream a SATA driver into the XP install iso file.

But, I would follow cryptodan;s advice and get a new CMOS battery. Remove the battery and power cord. Hold the power button down for 30 seconds then install the new CMOS battery. For the price of a battery it may be worth it. If you don't want to replace the batter do the above method of removing the CMOS battery and power cord then hold down the power button.

I removed the battery, the power cord, and held the power button for 30 secs. Then I turned the machine on, and it gave me the CMOS failure screen, but I was able to get into the BIOS. So I turned it back off, plugged the power back into the HD and turned it on again, and same problem: can't get into the BIOS or a boot menu. And the post screen sometimes only showed the MB model number, and sometimes it shows the IDE info.

At this point because I don't know what the problem is, I'm thinking about just trashing this whole system and buying a used one that's working

Do you think I should cancel the order for the new HD?

I don't have any bootable USB drives, but I can't pull up a boot menu even if I did have a bootable USB drive. 

Do I have to go through the pushing the power button for 30 secs routine just to get back into the BIOS?

On the side info:
IDE has master and slave options, and if memory serves, it's just to physically order the drives (for the BIOS).  Being either, master or slave, doesn't impact the drive features.

That being said, you may have a hardware problem due to the pc's old age.  The idea to upgrade to a new PC is a good idea.

 

Edited by Dominique1, 24 February 2024 - 03:02 PM.

Oh really? I remember in the older days when you had to physically move a jumper to diff. positions to indicate a master (boot) drive, or slave drive. So you're saying that the indication of master vs slave has no effect on which is the boot drive according to the bios?

Something is definitely wrong, I'm just not sure what. I'll pick up a battery today and see if that does anything at all, like he said, it's a cheap test and who knows how old the one that's in there is.

Regarding the slipstream of the SATA drivers, when I'm creating the slipstream for XP, which .inf file do I choose as there's two:

iaAHCI.inf and iaStor.inf

Thank you.

I would stream all the files in the self-extracting exe file. You will be checking Textmode driver as shown in the below guide. Extracting the exe file will give you a 32bit folder. Point to the 32bit folder when using Textmode. It will look for the Textsetup.oem file in the folder and load the drivers if I can remember correctly. It's been a long time since I did it.

http://www.waynezim.com/2009/07/how-to-slipstream-drivers-into-a-windows-installation-using-nlite/

cryptodan nailed it! The CMOS battery was the issue. I popped the new one in, went into the bios, updated the date and time, and it booted right into Windows without problem.

As far as the original issue in the other thread, I will try the new hard drive when it comes in and see how things go.

So that's an update to my knowledge that in some cases, you do need a good CMOS battery to be able to boot up. Good stuff, thank you for the help on this one :-)

Due to the age of the System which is 15 yrs old, and 1st Bios was 2011 this system can not handle what you are trying to do.  The OS is corrupted the Drivers are to old, the chip can npt due modern things.

This system should have gone to Linux Years ago.

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