| Author |
Message |
Julie Good
| | Posted on Saturday, March 9, 2002 - 12:22 pm: | |
Hi all,
Well, I replaced the battery on my motherboard today. I plugged in my monitor, keyboard & mouse. I crossed my fingers and powered the computer up. NOTHING!! The fan starts on the processor, my Cd-Rom drive will open & shut and all the lights are lit on the front. You can hear my harddrive power up, it makes one sound like it's going to boot (the usual clicks), but then silence. I kept my ear up on the inside, and hit the power button several times. Same sounds every time. So much for the simple solution of a battery!!
Any other suggestions? Could this be a matter of replacing my harddrive?
See below for prior history... 
Thanks, Julie
Julie Good
Monday, February 18, 2002 - 06:47 pm
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Hi all,
I accidentally deleted a dll files that Windows 98 needed to run. Computer told me that I had to reinstall Windows. Okay, this should be easy, right? Ha! When I went to boot up, I could not get to the Windows Setup, my CD-rom was not responding. I put in a boot-up disk, still no luck. I could still get into DOS, so I renamed my autoexec & config files, then copied the same files from the boot-up disk. I was then able to start the Windows98 install. The install would get up to 17% and then stop. I shut down, restarted the Install, stopped again at 17%. The Cd-Rom drive did not seem to be responding.
I called up a store (that will remain nameless) & they told me they could install Windows for a small fee. When I dropped my computer off, I told them and also wrote it down for them, that IF they got Windows to fully install, BEFORE rebooting, they would need to go into DOS & rename my autoexec & config back to the original file names. Needless to say, they acted like I had no clue.
I came back to pick up my computer, and they told me that they didn't know what was wrong with it, they couldn't get Windows to install and the computer would no longer boot up at all. Turns out they REFORMATTED the hard disk! Arrrggghh! I lost everything! I have no idea what they did, but they killed it. (I got a refund, but a dead computer!)
A friend of mine took my computer and managed to get it running again. But it is still NOT working right. It will only boot up with the Windows 98 CD in the CD-Rom drive. Windows will come up but when you run a program, it comes up with general protection faults and goes to the blue screen of death. To be honest, I haven't the heart to turn it on since I've had it back! (Borrowing my Dad's old computer in the meantime...)
Could this be a hard drive problem? The computer had been doing odd things before this happenned, the clock running behind a few hours (even after resetting, it would have the wrong time), I would get screen freezes, etc, before the reformatting.
Any help would be greatly appreciated!
My computer is a Pentium 400, 128 mgs memory. It's about 3 years old.
Thanks!
Julie
E.S.
Monday, February 18, 2002 - 09:55 pm
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This computer store you took it to should remain nameless and customerless after doing that without notifying you first. Since you seem to lose time the first thing to check is what is called the CMOS backup battery on the motherboard. It's silver about the size of a nickel has the numbers CR2032 on it. The battery keeps the time and other settings like your Harddrive type in the BIOS from getting lost when the computer is turned off. After the Battery is replaced go into the bios and set the time and date and everything else. The next step would be to figure out what your friend did to it to get it to boot into windows only when the cd is in. |
E.S.
| | Posted on Saturday, March 9, 2002 - 1:50 pm: | |
Hi Julie, check that all of your connections to the mainboard are good. |
Julie Good
| | Posted on Monday, March 11, 2002 - 2:31 pm: | |
Hi ES,
Yep, I checked everything inside & it looks like everything is where it's supposed to be.
I just don't understand what the nameless store did to it. This is so upsetting, it was a nice little system. How it could go from losing a dll file to completely dead is beyond me.
What's the next step?
Thanks,
Julie |
E.S.
| | Posted on Monday, March 11, 2002 - 7:18 pm: | |
The next step involves removing all devices from the computer except the video card, cpu & memory. If the display comes up, shut down and reconnect the parts one at a time, start up, and so on until which ever part causes the computer to not boot then remove that part or card and turn on again just to make sure that is indeed the bad component. The original lost dll could very well have been a precurser to a failing Hard Drive. |
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