cmos question

Hi guys , I see that they change the interface , it looks nice . anyway I'm having a strange problem , my computer was working fine until I tried to shutdown the computer , the os shutdown but the power supply did not , when I tried to boot the computer again, the post did not detect my two hardrives and it displaythe following massage "bootfailing error insert system disk" I thoght the hardives were failing , but what are the possibilities for the master and slave drives failing at the same time ? and they are only a year old . The bios did no detected both drives either.I waited for about 30 minutes and booted the computer again and this time it detected the two drives , but the system was very slow and when I tried to reboot, the same problem happen again , after several tries I was able to boot to windows and ran the hardrive dignostics program that came with my hardives it passed all the tests, so I know that the drives are fine . I concluded that the was a problem with the bios that its not detecting the hardives , I was investigating to find out why is this happening, then I remenber that the battery on my cmos is close to 6 yrs old ,and I believe it might be failing, could this be whats causing the problem and why the bios is not saving the configurations? If I remenber correctly the life of cmos battery is 4 to 5 yrs old . thanks for all your help
I'm running windows 98 on a pentuim II 400 mhz

 

yes, replace that battery

 

Yes, I'd replace the battery

 

Thanks, so the failing battery is causing the bios not to detect the drives?

 

Yes, most probably. The BIOS's information needs to be stored, and in order for that to happen, it needs electricity. A failing battery can mess it up too, until you get a new one.

Good luck!

 

Oh and by the way, after you put in a new battery, I would Flash the BIOS (be careful, it must be the EXACT BIOS for you motherboard type)

 

I flashed the bios a year ago when I tried to installed a 60 gb hardrive and the bios did not recognized he drive. there has been no problem after that

 

One thing about flashing the bios. dont unles you really have to.

 

True.

 

thanks for all the help I'll go buy the battery this afternoon

 

Flashing the bios is something that is not to be taken lightly. It should only be done if the particular BIOS flash addresses an issue you are experiencing with your computer. Such as Hard Drive partition barriers. Or drive recognition problems for 2 examples. Remember that a bad flash can make a very pretty anchor out of your computer. The newer motherboards make bios flashing ore fool proof, but remember nothing is totally fool proof. (When things get more fool proof they make better fools!)

 

thanks you for al your info ,I already changed the battery and everything was working fine until I discover another problem , I not sure if I should start another thread , but I'll post here if I need to make another one I'll just transfer it to a new one .after I changed the battery my system began to slow down and it continue to give me the "bootfailing error insert system disk" I was able to log into windows, I checked the device manager and notice that the there is a problem with the primary ide controller it has a yellow question mark on it.it looks that the driver might be corrupted does anybody knows how to fix it and where should upgraded from .
Motherboard Properties
Motherboard ID 08/14/2002-i440BX-SMC60X-2A69KB0CC-00
Motherboard Name Biostar model M6TBA/M6TBC

 

I did a search of Biostars Website and they dont offer anything except the manual forit. There is no updated Bios for this Mobo according to them nor are hey offering any drivers.

 

Actually for those who are lucky enough to own a Gigabyte mobo that's not true, but for most people it still is

BTW, Whitestar, I like "most" of the things in your system

 

Gigabyte boards do make it easier to update the bios. Not all but some even have dual bios to go along with the @bios software. that way if a flash goes wrong you can recover from it. Not sure but I would think that some other boards would offer this kind of safety net.