PC Booting Issue

[Bucket]

Originally Posted by BlueRaven

Good point

We had to replace all the Dell GX270 motherboards at work because of this issue. It came to the point where 30 odd motherboards where replaced by the guys at dell in one hit. I can't imagine how much money they would have lost worldwide because they used cheap capacitors.

Yea...at my old work- we had a bunch of Acer systems that packed it in all the time (the whole batch was faulty) because either the circuitry in the motherboard went or the power supply died (i think they was hyper sensitive to current alterations). I got so sick and tired of calling our supplier to get parts and ripping appart old computers and puting them back together :

[bathurst77]

I didnt read the question right... I didnt see that it starts OK 2nd time.
no need to do XPrepair. its hardware based

[Bucket]

Thanks again for all your helpful input guys...im going to open my box up and tinker away this weekend..if i can get away from ADSL2 i just got it connected... im on a 10.5Mb connection at home : :

[S3SR]

Originally Posted by Bucket

Thanks again for all your helpful input guys...im going to open my box up and tinker away this weekend..if i can get away from ADSL2 i just got it connected... im on a 10.5Mb connection at home : :

ohhhh im still waiting for my connection since begining of March might have to call and abuse AGAIN...anyways if i cant find the prob just pull everything out and re-build the comp should work

[Bucket]

Originally Posted by FALCONSR

ohhhh im still waiting for my connection since begining of March might have to call and abuse AGAIN...anyways if i cant find the prob just pull everything out and re-build the comp should work

Yea, its damn good...i was hitting 650Kb/s at one point my Connection allows up to 24Mb...but you have to have a DSLAM in your backyard to get that kind of speed...im only 2km's from the exchange and i lose over half the availble bandwidth...Thats the one great thing about Perth...iiNet HQ...ADSL2 Infrastructure is right through the City

So all up...10.6Mb Down/1Mb Up beats the 512Kb i had in NSW :

[jonk]

Originally Posted by aussiefalcon

please... don't install xp over xp. format it and install it fresh.


bucket, have you checked on the jumper settings yet?
if you have there is more things to try..

When you're in a shop and trying to save money for the custy, overlayed installs are the way to go if you have to find out if it's the operating system causing prob's to retrieve data.

You can just as easy do a clean format/install afterwards once you've accessed and saved the data.

Overlayed install's have been a common feature of all windows variants since year dot. It will not wipe out saved data and will repair bad setups in short time to allow access to broken systems.

[Bucket]

I just checked my BIOS again...something very silly i didnt notice...HDisk is set up as slave
CD is primary

Think it happened last time i messed arround in my case...i was tidying up cables when i put my 1kg 6800GT in lol :

[S3SR]

is the comp working fine now? u shouldnt even have CD and HDD(well not the C: HDD) on the same cable

[Bucket]

hmm
i opened up the box...and its been a while since i have
Just as a little test, i unplugged the CD IDE Cable and floppy disk...and ran just the hard drive...low and behold it booted with out a problem

My hard disk is SATA
My CD ROM drives are on one IDE cable with two connections (one was set up as master the other as slave) i have set them both to cable select

I Powered up again and the first time it booted with out a hitch...
The second time however it was back to its old tricks..

The Message

"Boot From CD"
"Invalid System Disk Error"

I reboot and it goes into windows fine

Boot Priority is set to

HD
CD
Floppy

...go figure!!

[Quasi]

Originally Posted by BlueRaven

If so (or even as a precautionary measure anyway), make sure the jumper on the hdd is set to master. Sometimes cable select acts a bit strange...

A very good point mate.

Also, don't have a USB hard drive, or other storage device connect by any chance, do you?

EDIT: Just read the post above mine. In the BIOS set the first boot device to SATA, or check the motherboard manual on correct setup/config for SATA as primary drive (If you just set it to HDD it will keep trying to boot to the IDE device).

[S3SR]

Originally Posted by Bucket

hmm
i opened up the box...and its been a while since i have
Just as a little test, i unplugged the CD IDE Cable and floppy disk...and ran just the hard drive...low and behold it booted with out a problem

My hard disk is SATA
My CD ROM drives are on one IDE cable with two connections (one was set up as master the other as slave) i have set them both to cable select

I Powered up again and the first time it booted with out a hitch...
The second time however it was back to its old tricks..

The Message

"Boot From CD"
"Invalid System Disk Error"

I reboot and it goes into windows fine

Boot Priority is set to

HD
CD
Floppy

...go figure!!

if its still not working get the biggest hammer u can find and hit the motherboard side of the case while the comp is running....no seriously dont do it
i got no idea with computer other than mine if its possible show us a pic of the setup including the slave/master settings and a pic of the CMOS setup....also pop ya ram out get an eraser/rubber like the ones u sed in the 7th grade and lightly rub those gold connectors at the bottom then wipe it clean....could also help

[ON_DUBS]

Originally Posted by jonk

When you're in a shop and trying to save money for the custy, overlayed installs are the way to go if you have to find out if it's the operating system causing prob's to retrieve data.

You can just as easy do a clean format/install afterwards once you've accessed and saved the data.

Overlayed install's have been a common feature of all windows variants since year dot. It will not wipe out saved data and will repair bad setups in short time to allow access to broken systems.

or you could plug the hdd into a bootable system as a slave and backup their data but that would be too difficult :

bucket, Quasi is on the right track there.
what boot order options does your bios give you?
when you select the order, can you select "sata"? can you select "none"?

if so set it to sata as the first or HD0 or HD1 whatever your bios calls the first hard drive. if you can, set the rest to none.

i dont suppose you have the floppy disk for your sata drive around? have a look for it and if you can find it, set first boot to floppy and boot from it. it should configure the sata drive for you so it boots properly.

how old is your motherboard? what brand is it?

[jonk]

"or you could plug the hdd into a bootable system as a slave and backup their data but that would be too difficult"

Your missing the point and insinuating I'm an idiot because to you I take a 'difficult' path ?! Ever realise that moving a drive might make it worse ? The idea is to get the drive to a bootable stage; not to retrieve data. I've fixed 2 very memorable HDD's; started/booted/recovered both of them because other PC shop cowboys did your trick... and their method didn't work and doesn't always work. If a HDD is unreadeable in one system, that means it 'could' be unreadable in another system: so you end up with that problem, what would you do ? You'd probably do what the PC shops did in the example above. tell the client their HDD is stuffed and to spend $400 minimum on Disk recovery.

[Bucket]

Originally Posted by aussiefalcon

or you could plug the hdd into a bootable system as a slave and backup their data but that would be too difficult :

bucket, Quasi is on the right track there.
what boot order options does your bios give you?
when you select the order, can you select "sata"? can you select "none"?

if so set it to sata as the first or HD0 or HD1 whatever your bios calls the first hard drive. if you can, set the rest to none.

i dont suppose you have the floppy disk for your sata drive around? have a look for it and if you can find it, set first boot to floppy and boot from it. it should configure the sata drive for you so it boots properly.

how old is your motherboard? what brand is it?

ABit IC7
i might see if i can download the sata drives off the net & make a bootable floppy

[Bucket]

Well, the problem has been solved! (Sorta...)
I bought myself a 200GB Western Digital Hard Disk to store my Multimedia Stuff on, SATA ofcourse and it seems to have nullified the problem!
The computer is back to booting like normal again :sm_headba
I dont know what it was but boy am i happy its fixed!!
Thanks for all your input too guys- was very much appreciated!