after re-installing windows and messing about with my cmos settings (so that i could boot from cd-rom), i think i somehow buggered up my motherboard. well atleast i think thats the problem. my current cmos settings are set so that the first boot record is HDD and the rest left blank. even so, when i start my computer now it will only search for boot records from cd rom. when it finds that theres nothing it will just state that there is no boot record and stop. i cant get into windows or anything. to fix this, i have to leave my windows xp cd inside the cd-rom drive at startup so that it will detect the cd-rom, ask to boot from cd-rom within next 5 seconds and then when i leave it to skip cd bootup it finally loads the HDD boot records... does anybody know what the hell is wrong with my pc? i'm pretty sure its not my HDDs as it doesnt even load them before asking for boot records. i think i somehow screwed up my motherboard but i havnt touched it at all.. its really annoying. any suggestions?

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Firstly why did you set it up like that in the first place. Personally and im not an expert as such i would have my boot settings on
1-hard drive
2-cd-rom

Why did you want to boot from disc after installing windows

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i didnt set it up. as stated, my current cmos settings are set so that hdd is the primary boot but when it actually comes down to it, it just searches for boot records from cd-rom alone...

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You stated that you messed around with cmos settings (so you could boot from cdrom) check what they say try to load optermized or fail safe settings if you can or change your settings around. failing that check the leads to your drive because it could be that or maybe you havent reinstalled properley and therfor there is no data on your hard drive that can be loaded.

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Dont think its your motherboard. Try doing the following: Since u said that u already set the boot sequence to HD alone, set it as follows: 1. CD-ROM 2. HDD Your PC will now search for a Bootable device in CD-Rom and then on HDD. If you still get the error message, it means that your boot sector on the HDD is faulty.

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If you boot sector on the HDD is faultry try running fixmbr from the recovery console on the windows disk.

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The easiest solution is to remove the cdrom and let it boot. That should force the default boot, which is from IDE Device 0.
Have you gone into your BIOS and changed the boot order back to normal?

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You cannot mess up your computer or hard drive by changing the settings in the cmos. The worst thing that can happen is that your PC will not boot up.

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i've tried restoring optomised settings, re-ordering boot records and disconnecting my drives all to no avail. this is the thing, no matter what settings i have in my boot record order in cmos, when it gets to the point where it searches it will only search for CD-ROM. i cannot do anything to fix it, it doesnt even read HDD so its not a HDD problem. this is why i came to the conclusion that maybe its a hardware problem. my onboard mobo memory where cmos settings are kept may have been damaged... but i have no idea how... it may not even be the problem. ;\

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Well i would say problem with you HD itself.

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