Tried to hook up tv to computer, now computer won't boot.

[confusedforsure]

I am running Windows 2000 professional edition. I have a S-video hookup on my computer, but never used it until last night. I hooked it up, and then hooked it up to my tv. No display on the tv. So I went in to monitor advanced settings, and I found the settings for tv. The only way I got it to display on my tv was by clicking the same display icon that the monitor was on. Movie playback was great as a test, but I reached down to plug in my speakers so I would have sound, and accidentally hit the power off switch on the strip. When I went to restart it would get as far as booting up windows, and then I got a blue screen. It flashes so quickly before it goes to try to restart again that I can't catch it, but from what I have gathered it said something about not enough physical memory. And something about a physical dump of memory I think? The only thing I can figure is that the computer is trying to display both on the tv, and the monitor at the same time, and being unable to do so because of memory limitations. I have no idea how to set it back to only boot with the monitor instead of the tv as well. I tried unplugging the tv from the computer, as well as unplugging the monitor and leaving the tv connected. No change. I also attempted to boot in to safe mode and was unable to do so. In fact none of the modes in the F8 menu seem to work. Can you provide any help? I hope I explained this well.

And if I have to just give up and reinstall windows(which I don't have a disc, I'd have to purchase one somewhere), can I reinstall it in a seperate folder and what will I lose if I have to do that?

[leroys1000]

Boot to the windows CD and select enter to continue to
install windows.
Setup will come to a screen saying searching for previous
installations.
When it stops,it should show your installation.
Select it and choose repair and continue the installation.
You will need to reinstall hardware drivers.
Your data should not be affected.

[confusedforsure]

I don't have a windows disc, and 2000 is very hard to get these days. I'm a poor college student. Is there any other work around besides having the disc? I tried bootdisk.com, and I got it to start setting up before it said acpi.sys is corrupted, and it wouldn't let me finish. It said abort installation.

[leroys1000]

Not if you can't boot to the operating system.
If your having problems with boot disks,you either
have corrupted disks or ended up with a hardware problem.
If your computer has more than one memory stick,try
each one at a time.
If worse comes to worse,I have a 2000 pro disk here I
don't use anymore.
Maybe we can make a deal for it.

[confusedforsure]

I took out one of the memory sticks, and attempted to boot up. I got three long beeps, and nothing. I looked up this code and it says that there is a memory problem with the first 64k of memory? I put back in the other stick of memory, and made sure both were seated correctly just in case. But now I still have the three long beeps, and no startup at all.

Should I buy new memory because I can probably swing that price if it's not too much?

[leroys1000]

Take out the one that you left in and put the other one
in the first slot.
Your not using RDRAM are you?
They need to be installed in pairs.

[confusedforsure]

I must have been, and I didn't even realize it, but I switched things around again. Pushed down firmly on both, and got it to boot up, but we are still back to the original problem. This was a custom built computer, it took all my money to buy it from a local shop. The shop after something like ten years in business went under soon after I bought my computer. No support from them at all. I've had to do everything myself, including install a power supply when the computer failed once before. I really appreciate all the support you've given me. Thanks so much.

[leroys1000]

Power down the computer and move the clear CMOS jumper
to the clear position for 5 seconds,then back to run.
If you can't find it,remove the battery from the motherboard
for a while,then put it back and try to start.
May reset your BIOS and possibly boot.

[confusedforsure]

Okay after I tried that I got this:

Ultra DMA mode 2, S.M.A.R.T, capable but disabled.

Same for both master and slave. I don't understand these. And then it said: CMOS/GPNV checksum bad.

And it asked to either load default settings or go to setup. What should I do?

[smurfy]

That's good.
Ultra DMA mode 2, S.M.A.R.T, capable but disabled.
Same for both master and slave. I don't understand these.
This means it found the hard disks and hardware monitoring is disabled. At this point we want to leave SMART monitoring OFF.
And then it said: CMOS/GPNV checksum bad.
This means the BIOS setting have all been wiped by the loss of power and battery backup. Exactly what we wanted to happen.
And it asked to either load default settings or go to setup. What should I do?
This is where you reprogram the BIOS. Not as terrible as it sounds. At this point, you should first try to load the defaults.

[confusedforsure]

Okay I did that, I put the date and time to the correct setting, and then loaded default settings. Still no change, still get the blue screen.

[smurfy]

Does your pC have on-board video as well as teh video card with the s-video connector?
Try plugging the monitor into the on-board connector.

[confusedforsure]

It just has the one with the svideo.

[leroys1000]

Well,looks like when you killed the power the data that was loaded
in memory was lost and the hard drive got corrupted.
Your at least going to have to do a repair install with the 2000 disk.
A repair install will keep your programs intact in as much as it
won't modify them.

[confusedforsure]

I'm not worried if some of the programs are lost, my data is the most important part. I won't lose that if I do a repair install though, now what happens if that doesn't work? And I have to do a full reinstall? I guess I'll think about that hurdle if it comes to that. Now my only problem now is where to find a windows 2000 disc. I called a few places, and most said they don't carry them. One guy said he had one "somewhere", but couldn't sell it to me because he didn't sell his discs. He was just in repair.

[confusedforsure]

I got the following errors when trying to run recovery with the disc I got.

First it said could not copy g723codc.ax, and I told it to skip the file after attempting several times to let it copy, then it quickly followed by could not copy gameport.info, after attempting several times to get it copy I skipped this file as well. It installed all other files. And then at the end I got this error:

Setup cannot set the required windows 2000 configuration information. This indicates a internal Setup error.

[leroys1000]

Glad you found a disk.
May be looking at a hardware problem.
Try making sure there is no external devices connected,
like a hard drive or printer.
If you have a TV card installed,you may want to remove it till later.
Try the install again.
If it doesn't work and you have more than 1 memory stick,
take the memory out of the first slot and leave it out.
Take the memory out of the second slot and put it in the first.
Try again.
Try each memory stick seperatly.
If that doesn't work,you may have crashed the hard drive.
You may need to get another hard drive,install on that,
hook the original drive up as slave and try to recover your data.
Let us know how it goes.

[confusedforsure]

No no tv card, just my graphics card with a svideo hook up. Nothing hooked up except mouse and keyboard, and monitor. The basics. My memory isn't seperate we tried that once before, and I figured out it wasn't. Now about this HD switch, is there a tutorial for this somewhere? I tried to google this, and the results seemed a bit confusing. I need something with pictures to show where the pins are to change things from slave to master, etc. I'm afraid I am going to really screw things up.

[leroys1000]

You can find pin layouts at the manufacturers web site.
Most drives also have a pin diagram on top of the drive.
If they are IDE drives,the master drive goes on the end of the
data cable and the slave goes in the middle.
If they are sata,hook the primary drive to the first SATA channel.
There are no jumpers.

Before trying the new drive,boot to the 2000 CD and hit R for repair console.
Type chkdsk /r at the prompt and hit enter.
Let it check the disk for errors then restart and try the install.

[confusedforsure]

I tried your suggestion first, I ran it through twice, and now it gets through the moving installation files, no errors, but after that I get the one I got before:

Setup cannot set the required windows 2000 configuration information. This indicates a internal Setup error.

I have a little money saved up, the old HD I had from the other computer I wanted to install in to this one isn't going to work. It looks like I'll have to buy one. Thanks again for all the help.

[leroys1000]

It sounds like the hard drive may be OK.
Remeber you reset the CMOS,so your BIOS settings will need to be set up.
Look for ACPI in the BIOS setup and make sure it is enabled.
2000 can have problems if it isn't.
Also make PNP OS is set to yes.(plug and play operating system.)

[confusedforsure]

Oh really? Good. I did manage to find a reasonably priced hard drive, and bought it anyway. If we get everything fixed I may still want to upgrade. I looked for both those settings, and came up empty. Is there anyway they could be named something else? And if not, then I'm probably just blanking on it, because I see nothing called ACPI, or Plug and play operating system. It's a AMIbios version 3.31a. I tried looking up this version to see if I could find out where these settings might be located at, and on this old 80s laptop it crashed while tryng to go to many of the sites featuring any information on it at all.

[leroys1000]

Do you know what motherboard you have?

[confusedforsure]

It's american megatrends.

[leroys1000]

Sorry,need a motherboard manufacturer and model number.
Should be on the motherboard.
AMI is a BIOS manufacturer.

[confusedforsure]

I'm sorry, I didn't realize they were different, but I'm hoping this is right because it's the silk screen letters, and they are huge on the motherboard so here goes: Asrock K7VT4A+

I looked it up just to make sure, and it says Asrock is a motherboard manufacturer.

[leroys1000]

Yes,thats it.
I'll see what I can find.

[leroys1000]

Yeah,your bios doesn't have those settings.
It's limited.
Lets try to bypass the ACPI in windows setup.
Boot to the windows CD just like before.
When it prompts to press F6 to load third party SCSI
or RAID drivers,press F7 instead.
The computer will not show a response to this,it will just disable it.
Continue with the repair install.
Let me know how it goes.

[confusedforsure]

Ah damn, still no change.

Same error: Setup cannot set the required windows 2000 configuration information. This indicates a internal Setup error.

[leroys1000]

Try again and press F5 when it asks for F6.
You should get a menu.
Use the arrow keys to select ACPI PC and press enter.
If this doesn't work,it's time to try a clean install on
the new hard drive.

[confusedforsure]

Yeah I tried it. Same error. It looks like it's a fresh install.

Now if I set my master HD to a slave, and hook up the one I just bought, and install windows, I should be able to get the data off the old drive? I'll let you know how it goes.

[leroys1000]

Hook the new one to the end of the data cable set to master.
Disconnect the old drive completely util the install is completed.
If everything goes OK,then power down and connect the
original drive to the middle of the data cable and set it to slave.
You may have to do a web seach on how to take posession of
files and folders as the new install may not allow access to
the old user.

Question I should have ask before.
Are you usind IDE or SATA drives?

[confusedforsure]

IDE? I don't honestly know, that's just a guess. I'm learning as I go along, this has helped me better understand my system. I have another drive, and it's hooked up to ide2 on the motherboard, am I just going to remove that entirely for now? Though the power supply is hooked up to it, and the disc drive. It was added in by the guy who put the system together because I asked for more space, if I was going to spend money that could have gone towards books I wanted more space. I'm going to need the disc drive so I'm guessing I'm going to hook up the power supply to the disc drive, and the new drive.

My new HD came with this disc utility wizard that helps with setup, do I use that?

[leroys1000]

Yeah disconnect the other drive too,for now,so there's no chance
of messing it up.
Connect the new drive to the end of the cable on IDE1 set to
master and connect to the power.
Then boot to the 2000 CD.
You don't need the configuration disk,2000 will do it for you.

[confusedforsure]

I wanted to let you know I copied all data from the old drives without any problems(no encryption with old windows, which was one less thing to worry about) on to the new hard drive, installed windows. However I'm looking at the device manager with a puzzled look as I try to figure out how to get the drivers I need on to my hard drive. Apparently my dvd burner is now a simple cd player, I have no audio, no internet, no usb controller, 16 bit monitor, and no clue yet how to get the drivers I need on to my computer without another cd burner. Which I don't have. Heh. But really again, I wanted to thank you for all your hard work. You were amazing. I'll let you know if I get everything running normal again.

[leroys1000]

Do a web search for asrock,go to the site and go to the support
download section.
You will need to use the motherboard model you gave me.
You can get motherboard drivers there.
You will need to burn them to a CD and install from it until
you get the network up.
Then do a web search for download everest,download and install it.
Run the program and it will give you hardware info so you can
search for drivers.

[confusedforsure]

It took 16 days, but now I have my computer back. It's running better, and now I know what I'm doing when it comes to some of the inner workings. You really were amazing. Thanks for sticking it out with me.

[leroys1000]

Your more than welcome.
Glad you got it going.