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Hi there,
was not sure where to post, so sorry if this is not the correct place.
I just got a new HDD put it into my PC and wanted to do a fresh install of windows, so i plugged it up booted into the BIOS and started changing up boot priority.
Everything was going fine and i got to the exit screen and wanted to save and exit, and put the windows disk into the drive, right then the bios froze completely and had to do a Hard reset
after that my PC would not post no beeps nothing, figured bios was screwing so i reset CMOS with the on board jumpers, turned my PC on and still nothing, turned it off unplugged it and left it for 30mins came back to try again and it got to post past the welcome screen but my old HDD`s S.M.A.R.T function is a bit screwy (reason i got a new one) and halted the boot process asking me to restart i did and again....no post. Since then I was able to get it past post but was not able to enter the BIOS, I would like to flash it but EZ flash will not load up.
Do any of you have an idea what might be the problem and how to fix it ?
Specs:
-Motherboard : ASUS M4A79XTD EVO
-HD 6850
-CPU AMD PHENOM II X2 555BE (unlocked to 4 cores)
-RAM CRUCIAL 1333mhz
-HDD (new one) Seagate Barracuda ST500DM002

My PC worked just fine till now, any help is appreciated

The situation developed,
i tried booting with my old HDD while holding down the EZ flash quick keys (alt+f2) and now it gives me the proper one beep post but all I see on the screen is a white cursor flashing on a Black background, it just sits there like that.

It's POSTing which is why you get the beep but it sounds like you haven't successfully entered the BIOS since it locked up on you.

Unlplug all the drives for now, and see if you can get into the BIOS to make sure that is at least okay.

Just unplug all the HDDs except for the blank new one. Boot and install windows to that. After you've successfully installed windows, plug in the other drives.

Thank you kindly for the reply!
I tried unplugging all the drives (optical included)
The POST only comes if it has been disconnected from the main power for about 20mins
And i am unable to enter the BIOS even like this, I think the BIOS might be toast but everything else seems to work so I need a way to flash it ...I think.

I also tried to use only the new HDD but I can't enter the BIOS still which means I can't set the boot priority and therefore can't install windows.

I read somewhere that Creating an MS-DOS startup disk and putting the BIOS files onto that might do the trick, but will it work with my motherboard, and if so, how ?

I know you said you reset the CMOS... but if you pull the motherboard battery out (wait like 10 seconds) and put it back in surely with a blank HDD you'll get to the post screen?

See that's the weird thing, and the reason i think my BIOS is corrupt i tried that and didn't get any result, and yes i do get the POST message and do get to the splash screen with this method, but that is as far as it goes, after that it just stops

But I have an idea:
I could make a bootable USB flash drive with afudos and the .ROM file on it and flash the bios this way, i have never done this before though, so can anyone guide me through exactly what i must do, would not want to brick my PC

Sounds like a power/thermal issue... like the PC is switching itself off to protect something...but if all you did was insert a HDD into the case I can't see how you messed up the grounding or stuffed up anything with your PSU or heatsink....

My PC runs really nice and cool so it is 100% not thermal, it worked just fine till a few hours ago, also it did work with the New HDD, it's when i was exiting the BIOS (trying to) that it froze and a hard reset was applied that it started doing what it was doing,
I am now certain that a BIOS flash is in order, but since EZ flash seems to have failed together with the BIOS i need to use AFUDOS, but i am completely inexperienced with how that works .

I would +1 the idea that the BIOS is toast if you can't get into it, especially not with all the drives unplugged.
I don't think they like being rebooted whilst trying to save BIOS settings very much!

Assuming your PC was fine beforehand, I'm ruling out incorrectly-seated cards/RAM/CPU.

Removing the CMOS battery for a while isn't a bad suggestion. Check your motherboard manual for BIOS recovery options. It may have dual-BIOS, BIOS failsafe, or an autorecover from USB function. Each BIOS is different, so I wouldn't want to suggest anything specific.

Well after leaving the PC without the battery for about a half hour and unplugged rom the mains i am able to enter the BIOS and restore factory settings, but the second i change anything it freaks out and i have to start over, I will flash the BIOS using a bootable thumb drive since if the BIOS is all screwy there is no guarantee that the built in EZ flash is working correctly (better safe than sorry), I will be using AFUDOS 2.41 and use that HP tool to make the thumb drive bootable can't recall it's name off the top of my head.
Other than that the hardware seems to be fine so here's hoping it works.

Good luck.

If you're still struggling after the BIOS flash, or even during the BIOS flash, it's entirely possible you have a hardware problem;

Hopefully a clean BIOS flash will fix the supposedly corrupted BIOS and all your problems will go away, but my insticts say that the Motherboard or PSU are dying if the new BIOS doesn't help.

What about your memory? Have you tried removing all but 1 stick of RAM in the first slot and seeing if it posts properly then? Perhaps a stick went bad...

Well i successfully flashed the BIOS.
Then I entered the BIOS settings to setup date and what do you know, it froze...
I really doubt that anything other than the motherboard has a problem, but nevertheless I will try taking out the RAM.
However on the plus side it seems to Post better, maybe i'll try setting the boot priority (the update fixed the menu) without entering the settings, before that i'll try and see what happens if I try again with no HDD's attached.

well i have some good news
The RAM idea seems to have worked now! I took one of the 2gb DIMM's out and now i was able to enter the BIOS change all bunch of settings exit and repeat this a couple times until I got bored.
Now the only question I have is what precaution should I take before plugging in the DIMM I took out? It looks just fine and there was some Dust on it and in the slot shall i just clean that out and try?

Maybe try the other one in slot one by itself and see if it still boots OK. If it does, try both again. You could also set the RAM speed down to a lower clock, say 1066 instead of 1333 and see if it will boot with both installed dimms then and is stable.

Sounds like a stick of RAM is going bad, could try http://www.memtest.org/ for a checkup.

okay i'm back
I cleaned all the dust out and put all 4gb of RAM back in and it seems to work properly, I am running the windows memory diagnostic tool from the disk and there are no errors till now will let it run a bit more and report back when done.

Okay it passed through 30 cycles without an error so I gave it the A-OK installed windows onto the new HDD and am currently updating and installing drivers, so everything seems to be working wonderfully
You guys are the best, really helpful thanks.