linuxtom

Prior to zeroing the stock HD in the Compaq, I had already scanned the drive with the latest Wester Digital Diags, it showed no errors. Plus the drive itself was fully accessible when swapped out into one of my other systems.

Even so, as my friend had nothing of any importance on the drive, I figured I'd give zeroing a shot, same as before, the system will allow me to boot from cd with any Linux live cd, run the installer, complete successfully, then on reboot hang. If I attempt to install Windows XP from a boot cd, the install will hang before completion, If I attempt Windows 98SE, the install completes the first phase (file copy), then on reboot hard lock at "Detecting Hardware", but can be forcibly powered off then brought up in safe mode.

It acts like something is happening in protected mode, when disk writes are made, although as I stated, it's wierd because Linux boot cd's all work and install, but won't allow booting from the hard drive either, once install is complete even at init level 1.

I tend to think it's either a problem with the onboard drive controlers, the cpu, or maybe ram, but I can't seem to figure out what is actually happening. Under Linux, when booting with the cd, all hardware looks ok, and I can't fathom what is different when attempting to boot froam a hard drive, plus as I said, I have tried several different hard drive in the machine, and same thing happens regardless of which IDE channel the drive is physically connected to, or drive settings.

I really don't think it's the ram, as that should flake out the Linux live cd's as well, but not sure as I have to spare ram that is compatible with the board to test it.

And I have no IDE cards to try disabling the onboard IDE either, so I am kind of stuck at the moment.