Anyone REALLY good with P.C's ... - Saxperience

minxymears · 25th January 2009, 23:08

Right guys ... I have a MAJOR issue ... Im currently using my Dad's laptop because:

When I power on my P.C my PSU powers up, and hard drives spools up ... but even DOS doesnt boot... needless to say I get no further ... im just left with a nice BLACK (not blue) screen with a pretty Intel logo on it ...
Ermm.... Sector of the hardrive with the boot files faulty? Massive virus thats erased the boot files?

HEEEEELLLPPPPPP!!!!! Im gutted as I dont think ive backed up my photos of my 3 months i spent in America through summer

Music etc can be replaced ... though it all will be a ball ache.... but someone please tell me Im not COMPLETELY screwed...

Can i pop my HDD out and set it as slave on another system to try and recover any files.... is this as simple as that or will everything just be jibberish and a bunch of letters and numbers, and if this is possible, is it also possible that the virus can manifest onto the other computers drive...

Any help really appreciated ...

Liam_ · 25th January 2009, 23:10

Try resetting the CMOS - if you look on the motherboard you'll see a battery... remove it for a few minutes, replace it and give it another try.

If that fails, you'll need to find the clear CMOS jumper on the board.

EDIT: Just realised... it must be POSTing if you can see the Intel logo. Can you get into the BIOS?

minxymears · 25th January 2009, 23:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by LeeumH

Try resetting the CMOS - if you look on the motherboard you'll see a battery... remove it for a few minutes, replace it and give it another try.

If that fails, you'll need to find the clear CMOS jumper on the board.

Cheers will give that a try

Liam_ · 25th January 2009, 23:13

See my edit above mate... try getting into the BIOS and see if the hard drive is being detected or not.

minxymears · 25th January 2009, 23:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by LeeumH

See my edit above mate... try getting into the BIOS and see if the hard drive is being detected or not.

Comp will only react to the power button, F5 or F12 dont do anything ....

Liam_ · 25th January 2009, 23:19

What about delete when its booting?

minxymears · 25th January 2009, 23:39

reset the CMOS and it booted ... Ive chosen safe mode ... anything I should check?
What the hell was the problem if all it needed was a battery taking out of the board for a few seconds?

Im checking the event log and ive had 18 x 7001 errors from the source 'Service Control Manager Eventlog Provider'
and 6x system errors, ID 10005 , Source: DistributedCOM

Thanks for the help.... is it ok to try and boot it normally now?

evans1089 · 25th January 2009, 23:44

in safe mode click system restore

minxymears · 26th January 2009, 11:49

ARRGGHHHHHH!!! Same again this morning! Not booting again?! What can be causing this?! I dont fancy having to open up the case and lift the battery every time I wanna switch it on! Ive restored it to a windows update 5 days ago ... so am i right in assuming its a hardware issue?

Mochachino · 26th January 2009, 12:21

Persoanlly, id take the HDD out and put it in aonther laptop/computer, and save all ya stuff off it and reformat it. thats my answeer to everything lol. Nothing a reformat dosent sort out haha

gd16 · 26th January 2009, 12:55

Reformat ain't gonna help if its not even getting to the stage where it reads the HD

betty02 · 26th January 2009, 13:02

Reset the CMOS again and then back up everything you need, should really do this all the time mate and once youve backed up then reformat the HDD and try the fresh install on another PC and try booting from it etc, then you will know tis not that so can keep that safe with all the important stuff you have on it!

WorthingSaxoVTR · 26th January 2009, 13:07

if you disconnect the hard drive start the machine and it wont go into bios then the motherboard is fucked

Liam_ · 26th January 2009, 13:29

Does it boot into windows normally if you choose normal mode or is that when it locks up? If the latter, I'd set CD-ROM as the first boot device, whack your XP disc in and repair the installation.

Mochachino · 26th January 2009, 13:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by gd16

Reformat ain't gonna help if its not even getting to the stage where it reads the HD

well he said it was on the 7th post.

bpm · 26th January 2009, 15:38

One issue Ive had before is similar, might be worth a try.

If its got no RAM it wont boot up it'll just freeze. Not that you havent got any but if its not in properly and making a good connection it will do this.

Resetting the CMOS you may have knocked it back in, and as you stood the tower up its out again. Just a thought.

Ste-88 · 26th January 2009, 15:41

Whenever I reset the CMOS I take the battery off, unplug the lead from the psu, and hold the power button on the tower for about 20 seconds, plug it back in and its alive again.

DCMan · 26th January 2009, 17:23

Definitely backup your importsnt stuff like photos/docs etc onto another Hard Drive, just to be on the safe side. Its the best thing you can do when trying to troubleshoot. Even if you know the problem isnt the hard drive, you dont know what is the problem yet, and you its better to be safe than sorry..

First thing I'd do is make sure nothing has come loose - cables in particular, but also just make sure the ram is firmly seated. The other thing I'd try is replacing the battery you keep taking out. I've seen something very similar to this before, and all it was, was a dead cmos battery. Even if its not the problem, they're only about 50p-£1 and need replacing every so often

DCMan · 26th January 2009, 17:25

Also, are you getting any beeps out of the computer when it first starts up? And do you know what the rest of your system is? Like what motherboard, cpu, ram, PSU etc...

Stickyjam · 26th January 2009, 17:29

providing everything is plugged in right, try a reformat incase of conflicting drivers if not somethings half dead...