Posts fine but no attempt to boot

[stubighead]

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I seem to have a very simliar problem. I have a perfect working computer 800mhz celeron, 350w power supply, windows xp 324mb ram geforce4. I am upgrading to a athlon 2600+ using the same hard drives, power supply, have new 512mb ram for it. On starting it up it posts fine, recognises the hdds are present but then stops. No drives are attempted to be accessed to boot up from. It is an asus A7N8X, not trying to overclock. The bootable hdd with xp on is a seagate ata 66 13GB. It wont boot??? No error messages, no beeps.
I am wondering if my prob is the power supply, old and cheap atx 350W. Could the athlon need too much juice for the hdd to work if the power supply is a bit rubbish? 350W should be fine but it was a very cheap psu. It works fine in my old system.

Thanks

[BuggZ]

Since you are using a new motherboard and processor you will need to reinstall windows. Make sure your BIOS is set with the CD-rom drive as the first boot device and the primary hard drive as the second. As far as the power supply goes, 350W may be the lowest you could use for this system. Since it came out of your old system, did you make sure it was compatible with your new motherboard? Most Pentium and newer AMD socket motherboards require an additional power connector on the motherboard but it after looking at The A7N8X board, it does not appear to have one. Check all your connecors on the baord and if all else fails, reset your BIOS to the default configuration and try to reboot.

[stubighead]

Is the fact that i am not reinstalling windows the definite absolute problem; why does it not even attempt to boot up? Is this a purposeful feature of xp not to be transferable without reinstalling? If so thats rubbish cos i have loads of data i dont want to have to wipe off just cos i change motherboards.

Thanks

[chrisbliss18]

I don't agree with Buggz assessment. It sounds like the system doesn't get far enough to load an OS.

Have you gone through the steps in the My PC won't start - Read this first! stickied thread?

[BuggZ]

Where does it stop during POST? Do you get any message like "OS not found" or "Boot Drive not available"? If you don't see any message similar to this and you don't see any hard drive activity (light flashing), then chrisbliss18 is correct and your system is not completing POST. Did you set the drive jumpers correctly when you installed them on the new board? If using ATA 66/100/133 drives and IDE cables, and your boot drive jumper is set to CS (cable select) then the boot drive needs to be on the end connector of the Primary IDE cable (Usually Black connector, Blue connector goes to MB IDE connector, and Gray connector goes to Slave, if used). If you strip the system down to the bare essentials and follow the troubleshooting procedures chrisbliss18 recommended and you still don't get an "OS not found" or similar message then your system is hanging during POST and you need to check the basics. Windows XP will normally attempt to Boot even if the drive is installed in a different computer but you will probably receive either a message stating you are attempting to install XP on a different system which will require a code from Microsoft to unlock or you will most likely get a BSOD with a memory dump because the original configuration drivers will not work with the new MB/CPU combo. Another quick test is to disconnect the hard drives but leave the CD-Rom connected and try to boot from your XP CD. If the system boots from the CD then you probably have a configuration error in your BIOS, a Drive jumper set wrong, an improperly connected or loose cable, or your power supply could be the problem.