Yes it is showing the hard drive and I tried that idea, all it said was “memory has changed, press f1 to continue” and still did not boot from disc.
Any other ideas?
Well, you said when this started your disc drive was broke, so it stands to reason you can not boot from a disc. You need to get a new drive if it is shot.
It is not broke, I just used it the day before and when the computer starts I can see the cd drive running and spinning and also the bios finds the cd drive.
The bios finding the drive does not mean the drive can read a disc.
To test it, try to boot a Linux Live CD, if it also fails, something is amiss with the disc drive.
Where can I get this CD?
There are many flavors, this is one of the most popular and Windows-like>>http://www.ubuntu.com/download/ubuntu/download
Make sure you don’t install it, you just want to run it from the disc, instructions 1 through 3 on the linked site should cover all you need to know.
Cannot understand why it cannot boot from cd device with a windows xp cd if this is set in bios as first boot device must be defective. Are you sure that all the ata ribbon cables are seated correctly and on the right ide channels.
Has your computer got a floppy drive and what make is it and try a old windows boot disk to go to DOS and see if hard drive is accesible
Yes, all the cables are right and it does have a floppy drive but I do not have an old windows floppy. Anything else I can try?
If you have got another working computer? Take out your hard drive Ide or Sata? whichever it is and put it in a hard drive usb caddy and see if it verifys ie is visible in windows on the other computer.
If it does not show as a valid device then it is blown and will cause problems with your original computer? bios. If it shows as a hard disk then scan it on the other computer for a virus and save off your important files
Shame you have not got a windows 98 start up floppy disk great for checking/formatting a hard drive in DOS FAT 32
Are you able to see any blinking lights on motherboard when powering on ? These are sometimes helpful as they blink out a code of what is wrong. You would need motherboard user guide. Seems like unusual coincidence but I have had things like power supply & ram go dead without warning and had to replace.
Building on gargamel’s suggestion, there are much smaller/simpler versions of linux than ubuntu that run from a live cd and that you could use as a test tool.
The most reliable I’ve found is Slitaz - and its only a 30MB download.