Whoa...computer won't boot up. Help!

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Whoopysnorp

Whoopysnorp

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I had been working on a tune, and I had to leave for a few hours, so I closed everything and just let the computer sit. I don't run a screen saver, so not much was going on in the background while I was gone. When I got back, there was a blue screen error that said "Unable to write to disk in drive C. Data may be lost" or something similar. I had to manually shut the computer down (by holding in the power button), and when I tried to start it up again, it wouldn't go past the 'IBM Aptiva' screen it shows before it does all the bootup stuff. It won't load from a boot disk or CD, and I can't get into safe mode, or even the BIOS. What in the name of holy hell is going on?

(heavily modified) IBM Aptiva
700 Mhz Athlon in an Anigma S30 mobo (AMD750 chipset)
AOpen DVD-ROM drive (channel 2 slave)
Philips CD-RW drive (channel 1 slave)
1 20 GB HD (channel 1 master), 1 40 GB HD (channel 2 master)
352 MB RAM
TNT2 M64 video
SBLive Value
Delta 66
Linksys ethernet card
350W power
Win98SE

Also, I've been running with the case cover off for a while. Don't know if that would make a difference.
 
WOW, sounds bad.

I had a simular problem a while back and had to reformat my hard drive and start over from scratch. Is your OS win98 ?
If so your boot disk should have got you somewhere. Could be a virus or something. My want to try your OS support team.
GOOD LUCK
 
If you don't have a boot disk, then try setting your BIOS to "boot from CD-ROM" and then boot off your OS CD. Depending on what OS you have, you should be able to have the setup program check the drive...or run scandisk, which might be able to fix the hard drive. LMK what OS you're running.

EDIT: after being a dumbass and not reading your whole post, I now see that you're running Win98SE. I'm pretty sure there will either be an option in the setup utility to scan/fix the hard drive (it might run automatically), or else you should try just selecting the command prompt option and see if you can run scandisk.
 
My first reaction was that it sounds like a hard drive crash, but you say it won't start from a boot floppy either. Is there any chance it may have recieved a power surge while it was sitting there - did anything else in your house act weird?

My guess (unfortunately) is that it is something fairly serious, like the motherboard going south. This rarely happens without some sort of outside cause.
 
Guys:

He can't even get into his BIOS!

Looks to me like something's burnt, mostly the CPU. If the mobo is throwing up some kind of a screen, it should be working.

Try unseating and reseating the processor, reseating some of the cards, and see if you atleast get the beep. till then, the guy's not going to even try to boot from a floppy or CD.

Sang.
 
it can't be the CPU... hardly...

he's getting video... the computer checks the CPU before it checks for the video... he has video, so the CPU should be working properly as well
 
This sounds like it's out of control. My advice would be to detach your hard drive and take it to your local PC store, and ask them if they can recover anything from it, then if you know its not that, i would suggest stripping the whole pc down to its bare minum, eg take out the graphic cards and soundcards. try running it, if this doesn't work, then all i can suggest is buying a new motherboard. Don't be fooled though, make sure all connections are in the right place, it sounds serious but you never know, one of the cables could be burnt or snapped.

hope it all works out.

aL
 
Thanks for the quick responses so far...

Here's the new developments. I came home today and tried an old power supply on it, based on suggestions I got on audioforums.com. I also removed and replaced the battery on the mobo, to reset the BIOS to its default values.. When I started it back up, it prompted me to go into the BIOS, which I did. For some reason, the stuff on my primary IDE channel didn't show up. Huh, that's strange, I thought. When I rebooted, it wouldn't boot from c:. I had to put in a boot disk. When it finally booted to DOS, I checked the C: drive and found that it was my other hard drive, which I use for audio. Clearly, something is wrong with one (or more) of the IDE channels on that motherboard. When I rebooted again, it did the same thing as before--no boot disk, no BIOS, no nothing. I put the newer power supply back in, did the battery thing again, and booted up. Once again, it kicked me into the BIOS. As it stands now, I've been trying to get the PC to recognize my C: drive, to no avail. I tried both ports on the motherboard, various cables, and various devices on the cable (always including my C: drive of course). The BIOS failed to recognize anything. So maybe the whole IDE apparatus on the drive is bad. It looks like it's time for a new motherboard.

Thanks for all your suggestions, by the way. This is a great forum.
 
Hmm, it's kind of hard to say from what you're describing. First you said that you couldn't even get into the BIOS or boot from a floppy, now you say you can.

To me it sounds like you had a drive failure, because that is exactly what you'll see half the time. If the drive doesn't work on either controller, it's probably a gonner. Luckily most drives have long warranties and getting a replacement is really easy (usually).

This does not mean that your motherboard is shot. Technically if the controller went bad it could have taken the drive with it, but that doesn't mean that's what happened.

Slackmaster 2000
 
I think I've isolated the problem to the drive. When I start up with just that particular drive on the cable, it won't boot. When I put my audio drive on the cable instead, it boots (after prompting for a system disk). If I have both drives on the cable, it won't boot. So that drive appears very bad. I just got it about two or three months ago, so the warranty period is certainly still in effect. It's a Maxtor drive; I bought a Maxtor as my audio drive, which had a problem when I got it, and exchanging it went pretty smoothly, so I imagine it'll be OK this time. Thanks for the help, guys.
 
One thing to check is whether the jumper blocks on the two hard drives are set to master/slave. That could affect how things work with either a single drive or both drives hooked up. You should try each drive seperately with the jumpers set to either master of cable select and then hook them up to the end connection on the IDE cable. Then set your BIOS to autodetect the hard drive settings and see what happens.
 
IMHO, Sounds like you may have damaged cylinders or clusters on your hardrive, if those go your pc will not read data or save data therefore you will not boot up because it's not finding your files that are necessary to boot up
 
The drive is hosed dude. Most drives fail either in the first few months, or after a long period of time. Get onto Maxtor's website and fill out an RMA ticket. You might have to download their stupid software and "check" the drive. At most you might have to call and talk to somebody. Either way, you'll have a replacement drive in just a couple weeks. You don't need receipts or anything. Best part about it, is that every now and then you'll get a larger drive than what you sent in, depending on supply!

Slackmaster 2000
 
check the replacement drive when it comes.. sometimes they'll try to pull a hat over your face... happened to me once with Western Digital... had an UltraATA100 10.0Gb drive that went bad... western digital shipped me a 10.1Gb drive for a replacement that was only DMA66... not Ultra66... just plain old 66 (slower than the old ATA33 drives)... their exscuse was they replaced my 10.0Gb with a 10.1Gb and that .1Gb's made up for the speed difference... what a crock of shit!...

just warning you ahead of time to make sure the replacement is at least the same speed and size.
 
If you just bought the drive within the last year, it's covered under the store that you bought it from, or at least should be. I would ask for a replacement there first, before going direct to maxtor.
 
Is that right? I bought it from Best Buy like three months ago...still have the reciept. I'll investigate that. Thanks.
 
best buy are little biotches. They will tell you to deal with the manufacturer.

xoox
 
Best Buy, well serves you right.

Send it to maxtor if 'best buy' can't help you out.
 
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