help me plx with new pc startup error

**west** · April 11th, 2006, 02:06 PM

Right, I',m new to this so be gentle please

. Basically i wanted a pc for my room, so i got a friend to build me a nice gaming rig, but i have come to install windows xp home edition OEM and i have came across the following error when i try to load up the os disk. . .

!!error awdflash.exe cannot be found with cd!!

Now I'm new to all this, so i have no idea as to what this means or to how i could fix it. The following pc specs are:

Amd athlon 64 3700+ cpu
1Gb corsair ram matched 512mb pair
seagate barracuda 7200rpm 80gb
asus A8N-E mobo
gainward bliss 6800gs 512mb "glh"
500watt magna psu

Now looking through the manual for my mobo, it would appear that awdflash is award BIOS flash that comes on the mobo disk. I also have a keyboard error, despite the keyboard lighting up and appearing to be active. I have tried to press delete to get into the BIOS but this doesnt work either. . . .I'm very stuck and I'd love for my pc to work sooon, please help me!!!!

thanks in advance, dave west

**markduren2458** · April 11th, 2006, 06:48 PM

Well the first question would be "how far does the computer boot before you get this error?' I would first try

1) check your manual and make sure motherboard settings are right
2) if right then you might need to flash the bios because it sounds corrupt

good luck

**west** · April 12th, 2006, 04:12 AM

hmm well the pc doesnt boot very far at all, it detects the ide device, trys to boot from cd and thats the error that comes up! I don't have a floppy drive either, and i'm not sure how i would flash the bios as I have never really set up a pc before, as i said, my friend has built it for me and has assumed that there would be no installation problems with the bios or os.

thanks, david west

**PBase001** · April 12th, 2006, 06:48 AM

Was there a CD in the CD drive when you booted up? If so remove and try booting up again.

**west** · April 12th, 2006, 07:36 AM

yeah there was a windows xp home oem disk in there, but when i boot with no disk i get a kyeboard error/no keyboard present and drive A error : system halt.

**PBase001** · April 12th, 2006, 07:43 AM

Do you get a option?

What kind of keyboard connector for your keyboard do you have? Wireless? PS/2? USB? If PS/2 make sure you don't have any bent pins.

Not in front of a computer with a 3rd party motherboard to check, but I believe there is an option in most bios page that will halt or warn on all errors. Obviously you want to have it on warn not halt.

Since you don't have a floppy drive, you might want to disable it if possible and again, via bios warn but not halt on errors.

You could access most third party bios via the key.

BTW, you could get the motherboard manual here.

**west** · April 12th, 2006, 09:55 AM

well thats the thing, the keyboard is usb conenction and for some reason i cant use it :S thats why i cant get into the bios which is a pain. Any other ideas? oh and no i dont get a press f1 to continue

maybe trying another keyboard might not give me the keyboard error and therefore let me into the bios?

**PBase001** · April 12th, 2006, 10:25 AM

Have you tried another USB port, preferrably one on the back of the machine? Give them all a try.

If you have a PS/2 keyboard around it would be good for testing or at least to get you into bios.

**geoscomp** · April 12th, 2006, 10:58 AM

If you are getting the keyboard error (ps2) and the drive A error, it means that your bios is not set correctly for the hardware you are using. Get your self a ps2 keyboard so you can go in to the bios and disable the floppy drive and ps2 keyboard and set it to use usb keyboards on boot.