BIG PROBLEM! Help!!!

[Ellenpoly]

I have a dead computer! It was given to me by a friend so I don't have any disks to use to try to reboot it.

It's old and I only use it in emergencies (right now I'm trying to clean up my laptop which had a nasty virus) but when I tried to download some antivirus software on this old computer to keep it safe while I was using it the other day, it was fine until almost the end (I'm on dial-up and it's very slow), it just crashed completely, leaving me with a black screen and a flashing sign that said there was a disk error and I needed to reinsert a disk. But there WAS no disk in the computer, so I don't know what it was referring to. I only know that I couldn't get out of that window to anywhere else. No use of my mouse, nothing that I pressed made any difference.

I had to just turn the computer off completely and now it's sitting there in the corner and I'm at a loss as to how to proceed.

Any ideas? Or is this one for the scrap heap?

Thanks in advance,

Ellenpoly

[degsy]

Boot the computer and see if the BIOS or POST detect the drive

Here is an example of a POST screen
http://www.degs.co.uk/test/cyber/post2.jpg


What errors show when you boot?

[Ellenpoly]

Hi.



When I turned on the computer (A Pentium Compaq 4110) a black screen comes up with the red Compaq logo and a flashing white curser-like thing in the upper right of the screen. Then that goes away and there is a small flashing white curser-like thing in the top left corner of the screen, with a notice under it that says



Disk I/0 error Replace the disk and then press any key



That’s it. I tried doing various combinations of pressing the F buttons either alone or with Alt, but I only got;



1D 301 Keyboard Error



At one point, two green boxes came up on either side of the screen-one said



F1

Boot



And the other



F1 Computer

Setup



I tried doing both of these, and got nowhere. It just went back to the beginning with



Disk I/0 error. Replace the disk and then press any key





That’s it. That’s all I can tell you. I’m very frustrated but I can only throw myself on your expertise.



Regards-Ellen

[Mr Bean]

Hi

Try tapping F8 repeatedly when the PC is booting.
You should get a list of options.
Choose command prompt only.
Then type SCANREG/RESTORE.
You can choose from 5 different dates
to restore a good registry from.


Cheers

Beanie

[degsy]

You may have caused damage to the motherboard when you unplugged it.

You need to get into the BIOS/Setup to see if the HDD is being detected, but if the Keyboard isn't being detected then you cannot do it.

[Ellenpoly]

Thanks for your suggestions, but still no luck. I tried tapping F8 while it was booting but only got those two boxes I mentioned in my previous post-one which said "Boot" and the other which said "Computer Set up". But when I pressed the F buttons for either of them, nothing happened, and I ended up back when I began, with a black screen, a flashing cursor, and the Disk Error Message.

Like I said, the problem started BEFORE I had to turn off the computer, while I was trying to download something from the internet. It crashed at that point and not when I turned it off.

In any case, unless you can think of anything else I might try, I have a sinking feeling I now have an unusable computer...sigh.

-Ellen

[SEUser]

Hi, Seems your hard disk or memory died.
A check and repair may cost you as much as a 1/2 a new box.
Probably not worth it.
regards

[jtdoom]

does F10 get you into Bios?

[Murf]

Asw jtdoom said F10 usually gets you into SETUP on a COMPAQ. It obviously cannot find the hard drive and maybe not recognizing the keyboard.

I would take the case off, find the CMOS Battery - Large Watch battery. Remove it and replace after about 5 minutes. This will reset the CMOS to default which may allow you to enter SETUP

[Ellenpoly]

I'm having trouble getting the case off. Those screws are in so tight and my screwdriver can't get to them easily. :(

For the moment, I'm going to have to wait until I can get it open and then I'll try your suggestion and report back.

Thanks again to all for your help!

Regards, Ellen

[Ellenpoly]

I'm bringing this up to the top because I just made a bootable disk for WIN98 which seems to let me back into the system but when I pressed F1 it showed me a

A:\ kind of thing that I guess I'm supposed to write in to continue to reboot, but I don't know what to write in!!

Could someone take me through the steps? I tried to follow the instructions in the Boot thread, but I couldn't follow it.

Thanks very much!

( tried writing in SCANREG/RESTORE, but what came up was a blue window which said "Microsoft Registry Check") and the same A:\ as before.

I don't have any of the original data on this computer, but I hope that won't prevent me from being able to reboot it and get it back up??

Thanks for your help!
-Ellen

[Tom]

Howdy Ellenpoly,
Sounds like you have made progress. Let's see if if your boot files somehow got corrupted. At that A:\> prompt, type
sys C:
After it tells you the files have been transfered, remove the startup disk and restart the computer.

[Ellenpoly]

I tired that, and this is what came up

Bad command or file name


What next?

[Ellenpoly]

I tried writing it again, this time it did SOMETHING, but what came up next was

Data Error reading drive C
Abort,Retry,Ignore,Fail

typed R (for Retry,yes?) but it just repeated that last error notice.

What now???

[Tom]

Bit of good news - at least it has the wherewithall to look for and try to read the drive. Reviewing the sitaution right now.

[Ellenpoly]

You must have read my mind! I just left you a PM.

-Ellen

[Tom]

Ellenpolly,
Let's have you take some steps to eliminate a drive gone bad as an issue for now. Please go Here (http://www.seagate.com/support/seatools/) and download Seagate's utility (works on most makes). Save it to your good computer, and use it to make a utility floppy for the trouble computer. Put the new floppy in the problem computer, start it up and follow the screen instructions to check the drive. Post back here and let us know how the results.

[Ellenpoly]

I don't have a floppy that will hold all the info (arruugh), so I'll have to go buy one. I'll get back to you as soon as I've been able to follow your instructions.

Thanks so much!

-Ellen

[Ellenpoly]

Back again after visiting my local computer store. The guy there said there was no such thing as a floppy with more than the 1.4 MB that I have. He said they used to make a larger capacity of 2.0 for a while but no longer and my only choice was to buy some kind of very expensive adaptor which would allow me 100MB of space. I asked if that was like using a zip disk and he said it was kind of the same but not. I dunno, I have no idea what to do now.

I'm stuck with regular floppies, since anything more would probably not work on my old computer in any case. But what do I do? The download is 1.83 and my floppies only hold 1.44!!!

Jeez louise, this seems to be getting harder and harder...

-Ellen

[Tom]

No problem. You download the 1.83 Seatools program to a location on your computer, not a floppy. Then click on the downloaded program, and follow the instructions for the Seatools program to create the utility floppy. Also, it is better for you to post all your responses here in the forum - that way other members who are viewing can provide you with the info you need.

[Ellenpoly]

I inserted the disk in the old computer and am doing a full diagnostic. (I wasn't sure from the different options how to just do the drive.)

At any rate a load of stuff is coming up under the heading of

Found Bad Sector

A bazillion different things are coming up, so either this computer is in really impossible shape to fix, or I need to try it again and find the information about the Hard Drive (yes? ) only.

I'm sorry about not posting all notes here. I'm under a time contraint and trying desperetely to get this solved before I not longer have use of a good computer to do all of this on.

My ISP is also only for certain hours and it's just about done for the day. So I'll fiddle around and report back tomorrow.

Thanks so much!

-Ellen

[Ellenpoly]

Hello again

Well it's been rather eventful, but in the end, I think a bust.

I don't know if you've actually used this program yourself, but I went through the different diagnostics, and except for the first one (Motherboard) test which passed, the others kept coming up with loads and loads of "Found Bad Sector" numbers and never seemed to be able to finish the diagnostics. (90 second checks went on for an hour before I stopped them. There was absolutely no registery on the percentage bar towards completion.)

I just went upstairs to check and the screen has gone blank completely and when I tried to re-boot it, I got "DISK CONTROLLER FAILURE" and no further, so I think the diagnostic may have crashed the system now irrevicably.

Any thoughts? Is it time to call it a day on this machine?

-Ellen

[Tom]

Yes Ellenpoly,
It is not looking good. The Seagate utility usually does a good job, but the outcome here tells of trouble. Overall, the report indicates:
1 - Bad hard drive.
2 - Loose or broken cabling.
3 - Failing motherboard.
At this point what you decide does depend on how much effort you want to put into making this particular system work again. For instance:
1 - Back to opening the case (as earlier recommended, I believe) and checking all the cable connections - also trying cables from known good working pc's.
2 - Try this hard drive in a working pc, and try a known good hard drive in this pc to see if it is the drive or the board.

I really must add that CTH has a Hardware forum that has staff/viewers that specialize in what you are experiencing, so posting there is one other option.

[Ellenpoly]

I have posted on other threads for other things, but honestly, you've been great on this particular issue which is why I'm so grateful.

I did open up the computer and another person had jury-rigged the whole thing in a different way to power it up, (I now found out from the woman who gave it to me). I did some fiddling, but really it's beyond me to know what to do.

You did mention trying the hard drive on a working pc. How would I do that? Is the hard drive something removable from the computer innards?

I'm pretty dispirited at this point, and may well either give up, or at your suggestion, open it up on another thread.

On top of this, I do have an even OLDER computer (1996 Viglen with a Pentium 1?) that works, albeit slowly with WIN95, so if all else fails, I can use that.

Oh for the days of my laptop WINXL!! Having to give back that loaner is sending me back to the days of "yore" computerwise!

Ellen

[Tom]

Why not pick up a quick understanding with Murph's CTH tutorial Here (http://www.cybertechhelp.com/tutorial/article/install-new-hard-drive).

[Ellenpoly]

It looks like a good tutorial, though I can already tell it may well be beyond my abilities at this point.

Anyway, thank you again for all your good advice. I am very grateful.

Ellen

[Tom]

Khong co chi (learned that yesterday - Vietnamese for "It's nothing"). I'm sure we both would have preferred a better outcome. Good luck.

[jtdoom]

bad controller is worse than bad sector... that you got it does make it sound bad.

arigato, jintan san... while I am on holiday in Español, I see good folks keeping track...

[Tom]

Tot ziens.