my computer keeps freezing immediately as soon as i turn it on without even trying to find any devices, if i unplug my cdrom drive from my secondary ide cable then the problem goes away. the computer has been running fine for about a year and then suddenly developed this problem, im hoping its not the motherboard on its way out. any suggestions bearing in mind that no jumpers etc have been moved and the cables are securely attached.

thanks

 

Does the computer boot up with just the cd-rom attached ?

 

Il have a try today, after i had posted last night i removed all ide devices and it still didnt want to try and search for a boot record, then i pulled out all the power connectors except for the motherboard one and the unnessecary pci devices and then it started to search for a boot record as normal again. I think il have to go through and eliminate everything. Im starting to suspect maybe my cheap psu is on its last legs.

 

If it can't find the master boot record then it will say missing operating system, or invalid boot disk, inser proper media etc. This should happen with no ide hard drives connected (or one without an operating system on it). Boot issues could be a number of things, simple process of eliniation to start, change ide channels, try 1 device at a time, swap the ide cable, change power connectors over, reset the bios to system defaults (then change accordingly)

 

thanks Dan, i tried everything individually but didnt have any luck, in the end i bought a new psu and everythings working ok again now.

 

Cool, glad you got it sorted m8