eMachine T2895 Windows Install problem

paulsiu

Member
Feb 7, 2005
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I am helping out my finacee's father with a eMachine T2895. Basically, it won't boot up properly any more. I ran Memtest on it and sure enough, the RAM was bad and I replaced it. The new RAM passes memtest and I thought everything was fixed.

I then ran boot up windows XP and it hangs on configurating hardware. The same CD works on my laptop. I have booted Puppy Linux on it and it works fine, so I am confused.

Is this a problem with the motherboard? How can I tell? My financee's father thinks one of the kids got a virus on the machine, but I don't think there is a virus that would affect booting from a windows XP cd-rom.

My thought that it may be in the BIOS, but I can't find any bios image to reflash on the emachine website. Any clues?

Paul
 

paulsiu

Member
Feb 7, 2005
156
0
76
Solved it after playing around with the bios. On the eMachine T2895, there is an option to load the fail-safe factory setting. If you load this, Windows will never work. You need to load the optimized factory setting. If you do this, the windows setup will start working again.