But Can You Answer This?????

DeRailur

Banned
Dec 7, 2003
103
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950 tbird
abit kt7a
40g ibm deskstar
13g wd
gf4 ti 4400

ok this thing was working fine, i just thought it might be a good idea to clean it out - do a format and reinstall. ive done this several times in the past and never had any problems. but this time ive had nothing but problems. the system WILL NOT boot from a boot floppy, it will either hang on verifying dmi pool data or give me a disk i/o error. it will boot from my win xp pro cd but....... i get mucho errors when trying to install the o/s. there are several files that will not install from the cd onto the hdd. i have tried switching the hdds around as far as pri and slave and have tried installing the o/s on both of them with the same result.

in my limited knowledge i cannot narrow this down to a single problem. at first i thought floppy drive was bad and thats why it wasnt booting from a disk (i tried several). i dont think both my hdds are bad. something is wrong tho obviously and i hope that it is a single problem instead of several that are causing these problems. can anyone figure what it is with the info listed?? but if more info is needed ill be more than happy to post it. thank you in advance.
 

ArborBarber

Senior member
Dec 1, 2002
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if your system passes a post then it's not memory, it sounds like a HD problem or possible a corrupted install disk(s)...
 

DeRailur

Banned
Dec 7, 2003
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i dont think its the ram as the system posts fine. but as i said i am not an expert by any means so you could be right. ill see if that corrects anything.
 

sodcha0s

Golden Member
Jan 7, 2001
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Just because your system POST's fine doesn't mean your ram is OK. When you say it was a good idea to clean your system out, were you just refering to your OS, or did you mean the inside of the case also? Either way, make sure all expansion cards, ram, power plugs and cables are fully seated. If it's still not working I would try some known good ram and see how that does.
 

DAPUNISHER

Super Moderator CPU Forum Mod and Elite Member
Super Moderator
Aug 22, 2001
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Originally posted by: sodcha0s
Just because your system POST's fine doesn't mean your ram is OK. When you say it was a good idea to clean your system out, were you just refering to your OS, or did you mean the inside of the case also? Either way, make sure all expansion cards, ram, power plugs and cables are fully seated. If it's still not working I would try some known good ram and see how that does.
Excellent advice.
 

ArborBarber

Senior member
Dec 1, 2002
320
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DeRailur,
Yes, that is good advice, it may be a mem issue, it depends on how bad the mem is damaged if it will post or not. If you can get Memtest86 to boot from a floppy you might be able to check your mem.I was under the impression that if you had bad memory it wouldn't post, however that's not always the case, also it may or may not give you beep codes if in fact you do have bad mem.


:)



edit: you may also want to try and reset your cmos...
 

DeRailur

Banned
Dec 7, 2003
103
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i appreciate the input thus far, im curently plugging and unplugging different sticks to see if this clears it up. ill reply when i determine whether or not this helps. thanks again.
 

blodhi74

Diamond Member
Mar 28, 2003
4,566
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agree with last posts ... had a same issue with my system ...even after a full disk format windows installation would halt with errors that some files were not copied .... as it turned out the add on USB 2.0 card was not plugged in properly
hope this helps
 

Jeff7181

Lifer
Aug 21, 2002
18,368
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