I have only built one computer so far, but I have spent enough time researching to know that there are some very knowledgeable people here.

I am trying to build my daughter her own computer from some old stuff so she is not bugging me every 5 min. to play 'Sims' or email her friends! She is 10 and an awesome kid, so you would really be helping HER out...(violins in the background, etc). I know, I know, kinda brings a tear to my eye too. OK, sorry if Im incoherent, was up til 4am trying to figure this out.

I have an old Soyo sy-5ema mobo with k6-III 400. It posts fine, but won't recognize the hdd (maxtor 40g - model 4d040h2). I try to use autodetect in bios and the info (cylinders, heads etc) is not correct. It will not let me enter this myself manually. When try to boot up everything looks fine and then error message "disk boot failure, insert system disk and press enter".

Tried swithing IDE plugs and even using old pci IDE card. Oh yeah, when I try to format disk with software from hdd the program just stops and leaves me hanging with an A prompt. And ran a testing program from Maxtors website and everthing 'passed' except 'bios extension support', but the testing program recognizes hdd properly.

so...I flashed the bios with latest from soyo, and no change. I'm out of ideas.

At this point it is a matter of not giving up more than saving $. I would appreciate any help whatsoever...Thanks in advance...