Computer Issues...

[pvalexl]

After returning from my 10 day vacation :-cool My computer has been having major issues. Upon leaving, I unplugged the system and made sure everything was off and whatnot. Then, when I got home, plugged everything in again, ect...I turned on the system. The system did its POST (Power on self test) and it gave me the single beep which meant everything was in order. Then, after the test (where windows should begin loading) I was given a message...I can't remember exactly but it was asking for a system disk. Wierd...never happened before. I reset the BIOS to default settings and tried it a couple more times every 5 minutes or so. After the 5th or 6th time, the computer didn't even turn on...NOT GOOD. I switched off the power supply and let it sit there overnight. Next morning I powered on and it started (thank god). Then after the POST, i just get a blinking underscore ( _ ) and it stays that way...windows never boots. Can anyone enlighten me? After an hour and a half on the phone trying to speak with an ASUS represenative, I gave up.

System specs:

Asus A7V333 Motherboard
Athlon XP2000
512 PC 2100 Crucial DDR
PNY GF4 ti4200 64 mb.
Quantum Fireball 60 GB HD
XP Professional

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

http://www.flightsim.com/dcforum/Use...ab5e4b3e9d.jpg

[kelton1]

One possibility is that there is a hard drive problem. Sounds like the boot files got corrupted. possibly a virus.

[Bigshot]

You battery is probably dead or dying. I had that happen once myself.

[newguy]

I'd shoot for replacing the battery first...Its the cheapest thing to replace. If that doesn't work, your hard drive may have taken a dump, jumped off the proverbial cliff, jumped into the ocean with concrete shoes...you get the point. What the heck...kick it see if that works.. Seriously tho, my brother had something similar to him happen, he had only unplugged his computer for 30 minutes tho. One of his hard drives eventually recovered, but it took some patience. The other never made it back alive.


"For my birthday I got a humidifier and a dehumidifier. I put them in the same room and let them fight it out."

[pvalexl]

Could it still be a battery issue? The computer will turn on, and i can get into the BIOS and fool around in there...whatever, but when i save changes, exit, restart, windows doesn't load like it should.

http://www.flightsim.com/dcforum/Use...ab5e4b3e9d.jpg

[pvalexl]

Another note...The time and date in the BIOS are accurate.

http://www.flightsim.com/dcforum/Use...ab5e4b3e9d.jpg

[Bingo_Fuel]

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON Jan-06-03 AT 10:52PM (EST)[/font][p]pvalexl,
The reason the poster above mentioned replacing the CMOS battery is that it saves the system settings when the computer is off, especially while no power is supplied to the computer at all. Most modern computers have a live 5V rail when turned off and it can draw power from there to keep the settings, but not if totally unplugged, hence the battery. This battery is typically a CR2032, 3V lithium battery. These batteries run about $1.00USD at any chain retail store. If this battery had died, you could experience trouble, therefore, the suggestion was valid in the context, it was also the cheapest solution.
On to the second, and not so cheap solution. If you had a HDD that was marginal, as long as it was turned on regularly, or left on continually, you probably wouldn't notice the problem. A long absence and subsequent restart could have caused the HDD to fail on you. I would wager in that direction, but that doesn't negate other possibilities. I had one computer here at the house that would post and try to start Windows, only to fail, or fail shortly after accessing Windows. I tried everything from HDD to vid card, nothing fixed it. On a whim, I touched one of the sticks of RAM and just about burned off the tip of my finger. I removed that stick, problem gone; put it back in, problem returned. I replaced that stick with a new one, it's been running fine since. This problem cropped up suddenly, so don't think there has to be a sign, or reasons, it just is.....
Good luck, try some of the suggestions alluded to here and above, you will probably find a solution. Also, if you touch RAM, or anything else in your computer while it's turned on, and/or plugged in, you do so at your own risk. I can promise that if you do it, all hell will break loose, and your grandkids will be delinquents.
Mike

[LCA]

I had some older 8088/286/486 systems that had been stored in my closet for a year or two and when I went to bring them out I found the HD's on some had went bad. They all worked before storing them. My findings when the HD's where scraped were the heads had stuck to the disk surfaces in the parked position due to high humidity.

HD heads fly over the disks using the air pressure created by the disks to lift them off the disk surface ever so slightly.
When the disks stop turning the heads actually come to rest on the surface of the disk and if left in a humid condition can actually stick to the disk surface and when you try to restart the HD they either break free damaging the disk where they were resting and/or the heads them self's or they just stop the disks from turning all together. Either way your out of luck.

As stated by the others check the CMOS battery first, and replace it if needed. then check the bios to make sure C or what ever drive the OS is on is set to be checked for an OS during the boot up of the system.

The system should revert back to its default settings in the absence of the battery and should still boot the default HD if there is a working OS on the bootable HD.

If not.

And you have a boot disk, Boot from A drive and see if the boot HD is accessible or even seen on the system. If you can access the boot drive then there is more than likely a boot sector bad on the HD and the drive will need to be reformatted to mark the bad sector and the OS re installed to get it back working right.

We had this happen also to a 200meg 2.5 gig HD system we are using now for chat, after a shut down during a storm 2 years ago we had the same thing happen, when we re booted after the storm no OS was found a reformat of the HD and reinstall of the OS fixed the system and it has been working fine ever sense even being shut down for more storms. My point here is it may not be needed to go out and buy a new HD at this time If it was just a slight head crash unless it crashes again soon.

good luck with it..

The flying poor boy ----- Bob

LCA
Louis Concept Aircraft
http://www.angelfire.com/tx5/km5am

[hewitsd]

Hi Mike,

on the subject of HDD failures, how can you tell if your drive is "marginal"?

I ask because I had a HDD failure a couple of weeks ago: one of the FAT's got corrupted and when the system tried to "fix" it, it really screwed it up, though I think it was screwed anyway: io.sys had gone for a start!

Anyway, after spending hours loading everything back on, a week or so later a very similar thing happened, just total corruption on one of the three partitions on the drive. Other 2 SEEM to be ok.

I've ordered a new one, as usual the support people at the place I bought the machine were useless, but I could still use the drive if I can find out what's going on.

I did a surface test, which completed without error, though I'm not convinced this a "real world" test when the drive is really working and reading/writing non-contiguous blocks.

I've downloaded some diags from the WD site to try, but do you know of any other way of testing a drive to see if it's shortly going to kiss me goodbye !

The drive is barely 12 months old, but I had a previous WD drive that failed, with similar but more frequent problems - needless to say, the one I've ordered isn't WD!

Thanks for any advice

Dave.