No active Partition?

[windowslover]

I got a new hard drive and my bios reads it fine it also passes tests. all my settings are set to default. I have my cdrom boot sequence first because im trying to install windows from a bootable dvd on startup. I also get these results without ANY media or components attached. Its got a gig of ram. I also tried to slave the new hard drive with an external enclosure cradle and went to diskmanagment then tried to initialize disk drive and says error drive not ready, i then went to cmd and used DISKPART command and there it was listed offline so i got offline to say online now, and by the way my working pc wont see the drive connected as a usb mass device as it usually does but anyway this didnt help any i still get this error message when i try to boot up. Finally here is the error messsage below that shows when i boot my brand new hard drive up.

No active Partition
PXE-E61 media test failure, check cable

 

[DavidE]

You said you have a CDROM as first boot device and a DVD Install Disc.
Do you also have a DVD drive, and can you set that as first boot device?

You may have a bad Win 7 DVD you are trying to install from.
Is it clean and not scratched?

Where and how did you get your Win 7 DVD?
Did you download and burn the DVD?
If so, what program did you use and at what burning speed?

Does your other "working" PC see this DVD as a bootable Win 7 disc?

 

[Saltgrass]

Perhaps it makes a difference, but the x64 version of Windows says it needs 2 GB of RAM. Just wondering if that was triggering the PXE message.

If you can't get the DVD to boot, you might try the Flash Drive method.

 

[windowslover]

sorry let me clear something up it is a dvdrom drive and i have a windows disk in there i believe its dvd and i also have an old school cd xp i tried and i got the same message. Both the disks are golden ive tried them on a working pc and option to install OS on boot comes up for that. I also tried loading unbutun from cd and i get same message.

its clean, no scratches or smears

flash drive method and then disable all other things like floppy, dvdrom? there is an option in the bios that lets me recover system from floppy but i dont know what files to get, its also the only pc i have with a floppy drive so i dont know how i would load the files onto it maybe go to a library with a usb drive and just copy it over to the floppy. The computer is a beast its one of those poweredge dell server corporation pc. Ill try a few of these methods im off to find those floppy files and will post back later.

 

[karlsnooks]

windowslover,

Are you trying to install Win 7?

I'm confused as to the situation.

 

[DavidE]

You can find a lot google hits for PXE-E61 media test failure, check cable
Seems a lot of people have this issue, and there are a lot of threads with suggestions to try such as

In the bios, set the NIC entry to "ON (PXE off)" and remove the option of PXE boot from the boot sequence. Make sure all IDE devices are set to cable select (hard drives, CDROM, CD-RW etc) and that only those devices you have present are set to AUTO in the bios.

Source: PXE-E61: Media Test Failure, check cable. - Disk Drives (HDD, CD/DVD, Blu-ray) Forum - Disk Drives - Dell Community

flash drive method and then disable all other things like floppy, dvdrom?

Try creating a bootable install flash drive and see if that works.
I think that's what you're asking.
These tutorials have instructions that can help you.
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/31541-windows-7-usb-dvd-download-tool.html
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/46707-ms-dos-bootable-flash-drive-create.html

Sounds like it's an old Corporate server that was discarded.
Maybe it was discarded because it quit working?
Did it ever work since you got it?
Maybe the DVD drive is bad, and the HD could also be bad even if it is new?
Can you connect these devices to a working PC to make sure they are ok?
Can you connect the HD without an enclosure to eliminate the enclosure as a possible problem?

In post #1 you said

I got a new hard drive and my bios reads it fine it also passes tests.

How did you test it, what tests did you run?
Were you able to boot from a DVD with Manufacturer's HD diagnostic utility for testing?

If and when you get these issues resolved and can install, you will not be happy with Win7 64 Bit and 1GB RAM.
You should get a MINIMUM of 2GB RAM, or use Win 7 32 bit.

 

[gregrocker]

Change out the cables.

Test the hardware as shown in Troubleshooting Steps for Windows 7.

If HD passes maker's diagnostics test, to run Disk Check format an NTFS Primary Active partition as shown in Step 2.2 in SSD - HDD Optimize for Windows Reinstallation

 

[windowslover]

You can find a lot google hits for PXE-E61 media test failure, check cable
Seems a lot of people have this issue, and there are a lot of threads with suggestions to try such as

In the bios, set the NIC entry to "ON (PXE off)" and remove the option of PXE boot from the boot sequence. Make sure all IDE devices are set to cable select (hard drives, CDROM, CD-RW etc) and that only those devices you have present are set to AUTO in the bios.

Source: PXE-E61: Media Test Failure, check cable. - Disk Drives (HDD, CD/DVD, Blu-ray) Forum - Disk Drives - Dell Community

flash drive method and then disable all other things like floppy, dvdrom?

Try creating a bootable install flash drive and see if that works.
I think that's what you're asking.
These tutorials have instructions that can help you.
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/31541-windows-7-usb-dvd-download-tool.html
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/46707-ms-dos-bootable-flash-drive-create.html

Sounds like it's an old Corporate server that was discarded.
Maybe it was discarded because it quit working?
Did it ever work since you got it?
Maybe the DVD drive is bad, and the HD could also be bad even if it is new?
Can you connect these devices to a working PC to make sure they are ok?
Can you connect the HD without an enclosure to eliminate the enclosure as a possible problem?

In post #1 you said

I got a new hard drive and my bios reads it fine it also passes tests.

How did you test it, what tests did you run?
Were you able to boot from a DVD with Manufacturer's HD diagnostic utility for testing?

If and when you get these issues resolved and can install, you will not be happy with Win7 64 Bit and 1GB RAM.
You should get a MINIMUM of 2GB RAM, or use Win 7 32 bit.

i used the 3 stage test that the bios has.I just flashed a new bios from a floppy disk to see if it would maybe reprogram the error and instead i get a new message now ...no active partition, and also my keyboard wont work, so im gonna try and flash back old bios and try replacing the dvdrom drive.

this is for win7 im just saying xp was tried as well, sorry , are main drive focus is loading win7

 

[windowslover]

davidw7 what does it do if it was a discarded?

 

[DavidE]

davidw7 what does it do if it was a discarded?

I was guessing and trying to ask you if it was discarded by a business because you said

The computer is a beast its one of those poweredge dell server corporation pc.

Where did you get this machine?
Did a company discard it and give it to you?

 

[windowslover]

i cant even use the enter button on my keyboard to flash back

 

[windowslover]

davidw7 what does it do if it was a discarded?

I was guessing and trying to ask you if it was discarded by a business because you said

The computer is a beast its one of those poweredge dell server corporation pc.

Where did you get this machine?
Did a company discard it and give it to you?

yup they sure did.

 

[DavidE]

OK,
Do you know why they discarded (trashed) this machine and gave it to you?

Maybe it does not work...and they wanted it out the door.
It could be they pulled working parts out of it to use in other machines, and put the broken parts in this box.
They gave it away so someone (you) could salvage whatever from it (for free).

I don't know, i'm just guessing with one possible explanation.

 

[windowslover]

ok now i cant even try anything because my keyboard wont work ive tried usb and ps2 connections also tried 3 different keyboards. all i did was flash a new bios from a floppy and it was for the correct model and i applied it correctly. here is a photo of what pops up now. Some say this means your motherboard is shot. Dang i cant just solve one prob at a time instead i get one after the other. thanks you guys for trying to help.

 

[windowslover]

the pc worked before. I did fix it up a couple times and upgraded memory on it and replaced a cdrom drive. this is the first time its crashed and acted like this. One day i turn it on and poof it wasnt from virus it wasnt dropped. thats why i first went to hardware trouble shooting. Does the motherboard just die out after a period of time?

 

[windowslover]

ive tried clearing the cmos by taking out the battery to see if it would help and no cigar.

 

[windowslover]

maybe it was a bad MB the whole time and by flashing the new bios it corrected/pin pointed my true error? idk

 

[gregrocker]

Try another keyboard.