# Replaced motherboard, now won't boot [SOLVED]

## number_nine

I just replaced the motherboard+CPU+RAM on a computer that was otherwise working great.

However, the computer will now not boot from the hard drive.  Relevant info:

The new motherboard POSTs correctly

In the BIOS, I specified the boot order as Hard Drive -> CD-ROM -> Ethernet

The BIOS can see the boot drive

I can boot the Gentoo 2006.1 minimal installation CD, and from there mount my boot drive

I have tried re-installing grub (via mounting boot partition, chrooting, etc, as in the installation process) several times

If I boot without a CD, the computer tries to boot from the network (indicating it didn't find anything bootable on the hard drive or CD-ROM)

New motherboard is an Intel "Bad Axe 2" aka xbx2 aka BOXD975XBX2KR

In other words, as far as I can tell, all the hardware is working correctly.  It's just that the BIOS doesn't seem to want to boot GRUB.  I don't believe this is a GRUB error, since I never see any GRUB prompt/messages/error codes/etc.

Also, I'm not dual-booting any other OS.  Gentoo is this machine's one and only OS.Last edited by number_nine on Sat Mar 17, 2007 1:20 am; edited 1 time in total

----------

## aidanjt

 *number_nine wrote:*   

> I just replaced the motherboard+CPU+RAM on a computer that was otherwise working great.
> 
> However, the computer will now not boot from the hard drive.  Relevant info:
> 
> The new motherboard POSTs correctly
> ...

 

Try chrooting the install, and redo grub-install, also make sure you have the right drivers compiled into your kernel or the boot will fail anyway.

----------

## number_nine

 *AidanJT wrote:*   

> 
> 
> Try chrooting the install, and redo grub-install, also make sure you have the right drivers compiled into your kernel or the boot will fail anyway.

 

Hi,

Sorry, I think my original post may have been vague: what I meant by "re-installing grub" was that actually did a "grub-install" several times; I even tried it the manual way: running "grub", then "root (hd0,0)" followed by "setup (hd0)".  All this was done from a chroot environment.

Thanks!

----------

## Mben

You could also try lilo instead of grub

----------

## eccerr0r

What does it say if you force it to boot off disk, i.e., disable network/cdrom boot?

Are the disk boot orders correct in bios?

What emulation mode are your ide controllers?  SATA?

----------

## number_nine

 *eccerr0r wrote:*   

> What does it say if you force it to boot off disk, i.e., disable network/cdrom boot?

 

It doesn't say anything for a while (maybe 5--10 seconds), just sits there with a blank screen.  After it times out, it says something to the effect of no boot disk found, please insert boot disk and press a key.  I don't remember the exact phrase, as I'm not at home at the moment.

 *eccerr0r wrote:*   

> Are the disk boot orders correct in bios?

 

Yup, I've double- and triple-checked that just to be sure.

 *eccerr0r wrote:*   

> What emulation mode are your ide controllers?  SATA?

 

This board has eight total SATA ports: four provided by the Intel chipset (piix or something like that), and four provided by a Marvell controller.  I have the Marvell controller disabled in the BIOS (and nothing connected to those ports).  For the Intel SATA, you can choose between RAID, IDE, and AHCI modes.  I haven't tried the RAID yet; but when running as ACHI, the Gentoo 2006.1 Installation CD loads the sata_ahci module.  When running as IDE, the Install CD loads the sata_piix module.  Under both circumstances, the boot drive can be seen and mounted (via the install CD).

There is only one PATA port.  To this I have my optical drive attached.  There is an option in the BIOS to configure this as "Legacy" or something else (can't remember what that is, "Internal" maybe?).  I currently have it set to the "other thing" (i.e. it's not set to Legacy).  I haven't tried the Legacy setting yet, figuring the PATA channel works okay.

Let me know if any of that is unclear  :Smile: 

Thanks

----------

## number_nine

Argh, add this to my long list of trivial hang-ups: I didn't have the first partition of my boot drive set to "bootable".  I booted the installation CD, did an fdisk /dev/sda, did an "a" command on partition 1, "w" and then "q"; rebooted without the install CD, and was presented with a GRUB prompt.

Grrr.  It must mean that my previous motherboard (Asus A8N SLI Premium) was less strict about checking the drive partitions' bootabe flag.

Anyway, thanks all for the help.  Hope this post can spare someone else some agony in the future!

----------

