On Fri, 2007-08-17 at 16:03 -0400, Phil Schaffner wrote: > On Fri, 2007-08-17 at 18:45 +0100, Mário Gamito wrote: > > Hi, > > > > ><snip> > > > I just read in your previous email that your pc goes berzerk when > > > trying to change things on the BIOS, in such case, most probably > > > you'll run into issues afterwards even if you manage to start the > > > installations :( > > It's now booting, but strange things happen. > > > > It say my hard drive is hda and my CD-ROM is hdb. > > > > But then, it states that: > > ide0 is hda and hdb > > ide1 is hdc and hdd > > > > therefore, as there is no hdc and hdd, it just hangs :( > > > > Any idea ? > > <snip> > Anyway, the above messages don't seem to be problematic - the controller > ports will be seen even if nothing is attached to them, and may/may not > be relevant to the problems are seeing. Have to agree with Jordi Molina > - looks like you may have BIOS/hardware issues. *If* you can get into BIOS, disable IDE 2 and see if that doesn't stop the "hang" (I suspect it is not hung, but just timing out waiting for some device to respond - can take a *long* time). > Might try checking > cables and re-seating things - chips/boards. Could try clearing CMOS - > there's often a jumper you can short on the motherboard to do that. > Might try a different CD drive. Also, *if* you have a choice, put the CD on the 2nd IDE port (after re- enabling it if you disabled it) to reduce contention when using both the CD and HD at the same time. Since you have a P III and I have a P II board (and older) in some of my machines that will boot from CD on secondary IDE ports, maybe yours would allow this too? Might take care of some issues. The suggestion to try resetting the BIOS is a good one. Also, maybe time to replace the CMOS battery on a mainboard that old? Might get rid of the flakiness in your BIOS? > <snip sig stuff> HTH -- Bill