- Jun 7, 2000
- 9,099
- 19
- 81
I am having problems with a friend's computer. (My friend is Tom in case I use his name in this message.) When I went over and tried to start the computer, the blue Win98 Starting screen would come up and then the system would halt. I pressed escape and the bottom thing on the screen was Starting Windows 98 or something normal like that. Nothing out of the ordinary.
So, after I mess around for a while, I put in a boot disk and type "sys c:" and then re-booted. Now, the computer doesn't display the blue starting screen, but it still halts at the same place. I entered the BIOS, and found that the computer was living in the past. It said the date was something in Jan, 1997. I assumed that the problem was the CMOS battery, so I installed a new one and checked the settings in the BIOS to make sure that they were right. It still wouldn't boot up. I ran home and grabbed my computer tower, and then went back to Tom's. I tried putting my hard drive in his computer and then booting. The first time I tried, it did the same thing as his drive, halting at startup. I restarted the computer. Windows started, but it was extraordinarily slow. When I mean slow, I mean it was like I was using a %^&$##@ 386! The computer is an AMD K6/2 450, though, with 128 MB of RAM. Shouldn't be that entirely slow. I shut down, anyway. I re-started to see what would happen. I shut the computer down, waited a few seconds, and powered back up. CMOS Checksum errors. Like none before. It didn't remember any settings that I had saved to the BIOS. Lucky me. I continued with defaults, and the computer started Windows from my disk again, and it was slow again, also.
I shut down, and tried to install Tom's hard drive as a slave with no luck. The computer didn't like that at all, and resumed halting at the previous point. I took his hard drive back out, and re-booted with my hard drive, hitting F1 to continue when Checksum errors resulted in defaults loaded again. Not that I had changed them at that point anyway. The system loaded, and ran slowly. I did this quite a few times, doing a few routine things while it was running. I think that the computer froze up a couple times, but I was so mad at that point I can't quite remember clearly.
So I shut his tower down completely, and put his hard drive in my computer. It halted shortly after it detected the IDE drives. Great. I re-installed mine as master and then his as slave. Windows would only start in "Dos Command Prompt - Safe Mode" until I disabled my sound blaster in config.sys. Then I was able to start it. And log into my profile. And then the computer froze up. I re-started, chatted with Tom's mom for a little while, and when I came back, my computer was waiting for my password. I entered it, and it started ok. I found out that his hard drive was multi-partitioned. Well, I tried moving his "My Documents" folder from his drive to mine, and the computer locked up doing that. I re-started, and it then let me move the folder. However, when I got finished with that, Windows decided that the device was not responding.
By then, it was late, and my parents had called twice, warning me to get a tractor to the farm or get in trouble. I decided to stop messing around there. I took my tower and his hard drive home, and have tried to work on getting data from it backed up. I have restarted my system a total of 13 times. I installed his drive as master with no slaves. The computer locked up where it normally detects the IDE Primary Master Device. I installed my drive as master, and his as a slave, and restarted. The computer took about 10 minutes to start for some reason (probably because I didn't bother to tell the BIOS that I had been screwing around again). I mentioned earlier that his hard drive was partitioned. When I was at his house, his drive was D-G. When I got home, his drive was D-H on my computer. It was originally C-F on his computer, when it was working. That is one partition off. Something strange is happening. I got device not responding errors when trying to access D-G, but I was able to access H without many problems (the computer was extremely slow in accessing the H drive, though). I tried to move a couple of things from his drive to mine, and succeeded. I then got device not responding errors on H. I restarted and repeated the process a number of times, with no luck. I still cannot access the drive now. I have removed it from my system now, as it was crashing every so often when I had it installed. I should note that drive D looked identical to H at the root level. The Windows folder on the H drive looked normal, but the folder on the D drive looked like someone had been typing in Greek and Wingdings.
After talking to another computer professional in the city, we have concluded that his hard drive and the motherboard are bad.
Do you have any advice at all about this, anyone?
ST
So, after I mess around for a while, I put in a boot disk and type "sys c:" and then re-booted. Now, the computer doesn't display the blue starting screen, but it still halts at the same place. I entered the BIOS, and found that the computer was living in the past. It said the date was something in Jan, 1997. I assumed that the problem was the CMOS battery, so I installed a new one and checked the settings in the BIOS to make sure that they were right. It still wouldn't boot up. I ran home and grabbed my computer tower, and then went back to Tom's. I tried putting my hard drive in his computer and then booting. The first time I tried, it did the same thing as his drive, halting at startup. I restarted the computer. Windows started, but it was extraordinarily slow. When I mean slow, I mean it was like I was using a %^&$##@ 386! The computer is an AMD K6/2 450, though, with 128 MB of RAM. Shouldn't be that entirely slow. I shut down, anyway. I re-started to see what would happen. I shut the computer down, waited a few seconds, and powered back up. CMOS Checksum errors. Like none before. It didn't remember any settings that I had saved to the BIOS. Lucky me. I continued with defaults, and the computer started Windows from my disk again, and it was slow again, also.
I shut down, and tried to install Tom's hard drive as a slave with no luck. The computer didn't like that at all, and resumed halting at the previous point. I took his hard drive back out, and re-booted with my hard drive, hitting F1 to continue when Checksum errors resulted in defaults loaded again. Not that I had changed them at that point anyway. The system loaded, and ran slowly. I did this quite a few times, doing a few routine things while it was running. I think that the computer froze up a couple times, but I was so mad at that point I can't quite remember clearly.
So I shut his tower down completely, and put his hard drive in my computer. It halted shortly after it detected the IDE drives. Great. I re-installed mine as master and then his as slave. Windows would only start in "Dos Command Prompt - Safe Mode" until I disabled my sound blaster in config.sys. Then I was able to start it. And log into my profile. And then the computer froze up. I re-started, chatted with Tom's mom for a little while, and when I came back, my computer was waiting for my password. I entered it, and it started ok. I found out that his hard drive was multi-partitioned. Well, I tried moving his "My Documents" folder from his drive to mine, and the computer locked up doing that. I re-started, and it then let me move the folder. However, when I got finished with that, Windows decided that the device was not responding.
By then, it was late, and my parents had called twice, warning me to get a tractor to the farm or get in trouble. I decided to stop messing around there. I took my tower and his hard drive home, and have tried to work on getting data from it backed up. I have restarted my system a total of 13 times. I installed his drive as master with no slaves. The computer locked up where it normally detects the IDE Primary Master Device. I installed my drive as master, and his as a slave, and restarted. The computer took about 10 minutes to start for some reason (probably because I didn't bother to tell the BIOS that I had been screwing around again). I mentioned earlier that his hard drive was partitioned. When I was at his house, his drive was D-G. When I got home, his drive was D-H on my computer. It was originally C-F on his computer, when it was working. That is one partition off. Something strange is happening. I got device not responding errors when trying to access D-G, but I was able to access H without many problems (the computer was extremely slow in accessing the H drive, though). I tried to move a couple of things from his drive to mine, and succeeded. I then got device not responding errors on H. I restarted and repeated the process a number of times, with no luck. I still cannot access the drive now. I have removed it from my system now, as it was crashing every so often when I had it installed. I should note that drive D looked identical to H at the root level. The Windows folder on the H drive looked normal, but the folder on the D drive looked like someone had been typing in Greek and Wingdings.
After talking to another computer professional in the city, we have concluded that his hard drive and the motherboard are bad.
Do you have any advice at all about this, anyone?
ST
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