computer not entirely working...

[memevector]

Well I quite enjoyed building the computer, inasmuch as it is built (some inessential bits not added yet). And it's not dead and you can get into the BIOS setup and it can see its drives. But it won't boot from either an Ubuntu Live CD or a Linux Rescue CD or a Windows 98 boot floppy. Booo. (At the point where you'd expect those to be happening, the CD player does spin up but doesn't light up its "working" light, for what that's worth, and the floppy doesn't make vvv vvv noises either.) Tried different CD player, same thing.

More experiments tomorrow I expect. Any bright ideas v welcome.

Comments

[oilrig.livejournal.com]

obvious first check would be boot sequence. Easily missed.....

[topbit.livejournal.com]

You may also want to check the various cables. Unplug and plug back in both/all ends, and if you have the CD drive and hard disk on the same cable (assuming the hard drive isn't a SATA, with just a small thin cable to the motherboard), then make sure the hard drive is set to master, and the CD drive to slave - or put them onto a seperate cables as two masters.
As oilrig says, when you do come to boot it up again, check that it's set to boot off the CD drive, then hard disk (though you'll probably change it back to HD first when it's all otherwise working).

[lovingboth]

Only connect the least you need to get it starting: CPU, RAM, CD-ROM with the cable the right way round or floppy, ditto :)

Still the same?

[cryx]

yup, I'd second this. The spinning indicates that the power is good, but (if it's IDE) the gray ribbon cables don't sound like they are doing their job

[lovingboth]

If the above doesn't work, it'd help if you said just what you had...