Thread: Another Word of Wisdom from DavidP

  1. #1
    l'Anziano DavidP's Avatar
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    Another Word of Wisdom from DavidP

    Well...I saw that my original "A Word of Wisdom from DavidP" from a few months ago had suddenly been bumped up to the top by somebody, and it reminded me about the problem which has just been worsening ever since. Lets see if anybody can help me out with the new dilema:

    If you dont have background in the problem, read the original "A Word of Wisdom from DavidP" thread.

    I was working in BIOS one day...and I noticed that the Secondary IDE controller was not enabled, so I thought that that might be the problem with my CDROM drive not working.

    So I enabled it, but it would be automatically set back to disabled every time I boot up computer.

    Well, after several struggles and trying several different methods, I decided to switch the Primary and Secondary IDE controllers one time to see if anything would happen...of course I knew it would probably not work....but I figured I would just switch them back after I did it...

    So I did that...and of course...it didnt work...

    So I switched them back...but to my dismay...now the computer wont even boot up...

    It brings a message up to confirm that I wanted the Primary controller to be set to the hard drive I had put it on...but then the keyboard locked and I could not confirm anything or continue boot up...

    every time i boot up it sits in that screen...

    I cannot boot to floppy....I cannot get into BIOS using the F10 BIOS disk that I downloaded and was using...I cannot boot to HD.....it just simply stalls during bootup...

    what do i do now?
    My Website

    "Circular logic is good because it is."

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    reset the bios... :P a paper clip works just great :P make sure its on when you do it...

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    Well start with unplugging everything from the mother board. except graphic card, keyboard, memory and proc. If that works add one device at the time. same thing happend to me and after doing this it started to work..not sure why.

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    train spotter
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    >>reset the bios... :P a paper clip works just great :P make sure its on when you do it...

    I would not do this. (jk or not)

    Reset the jumper and restart or remove the battery for a few minutes.

    Do not stick a paper clip into the MB and turn on. Just as you would not stick a paper clip into a power point and turn it on.
    "Man alone suffers so excruciatingly in the world that he was compelled to invent laughter."
    Friedrich Nietzsche

    "I spent a lot of my money on booze, birds and fast cars......the rest I squandered."
    George Best

    "If you are going through hell....keep going."
    Winston Churchill

  5. #5
    i dont know Vicious's Avatar
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    heh... if you have a usb "internet keyboard" I found it will not work outside of windows...
    What is C++?

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    Registered User Invincible's Avatar
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    Have you by any chance tried swapping out the cdrom drive with another? Sounds like hardware failure to me.

    Edit:

    I recently spent 2 days trying to figure out why the hell I couldn't I couldn't re-install XP only to find out that I had a damaged memory module. RDRAM is not cheap
    Last edited by Invincible; 05-29-2002 at 02:38 AM.
    "The mind, like a parachute, only functions when open."

  7. #7
    Registered User JasonLikesJava's Avatar
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    Originally posted by Vicious
    heh... if you have a usb "internet keyboard" I found it will not work outside of windows...
    That was so... um... random
    OS: Linux Mandrake 9.0
    Compiler: gcc-3.2
    Languages: C, C++, Java

    If you go flying back through time and you see somebody else flying forward into the future, it's probably best to avoid eye contact.

  8. #8
    i dont know Vicious's Avatar
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    Well.. I.. just.. thaught...



    sniff.. everyone hates me..
    What is C++?

  9. #9
    l'Anziano DavidP's Avatar
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    >Well start with unplugging everything from the mother board. except graphic card, keyboard, memory and proc. If that works add one device at the time. same thing happend to me and after doing this it started to work..not sure why.


    Hey, that got DOS back up and working! So now I'm back to point A....must get CDROM and Windows working again...
    My Website

    "Circular logic is good because it is."

  10. #10
    _B-L-U-E_ Betazep's Avatar
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    what bios? F10 is usually a compaq related...

    How are your drives situated on the IDE cables. Like

    Primary | Master HD + Slave HD

    Secondary | Master CD + Slave CDR

    Do you have any extra IDE cables?

    Is your CMOS battery dead? Can you save other changes?

    Can you run a HD off of the secondary?

    Do you have two known good hard drives that you can put one as a Primary master and one as a secondary master.

    See where I am getting with all of this. It could be many things. You have to do more troubleshooting.

    ~Betazep
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  11. #11
    Registered User VirtualAce's Avatar
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    reset the bios... :P a paper clip works just great :P make sure its on when you do it...

    With advice like this its amazing some of you haven't toasted your motherboards or yourself in the process....




    ....walks out of the room shaking his head....

  12. #12
    _B-L-U-E_ Betazep's Avatar
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    And then take your paperclip... stand barefoot in a puddle of water and insert the end of the paperclip into the small side of any outlet. This will give you special powers to fix all computers by merely touching the case. Not only that, but you will have "turn everything into gold" powers for two days. How many of your friends can say that they have a gold bannana? I bet not even one....

    Try it today.

    (Warning. Sticking metal objects into 110 VAC outlets may seriously hinder your ability to live. Only try this if your last name contains Laden.)
    Blue

  13. #13
    l'Anziano DavidP's Avatar
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    >what bios? F10 is usually a compaq related...

    yeah, the Compaq F10 BIOS....see the previous "Word of Wisdom" thread for info on that whole issue...

    >How are your drives situated on the IDE cables.

    Primary - 1 GB HD
    Secondary - 8x CD-ROM

    (remember, its old)

    >Do you have any extra IDE cables?

    yes

    >Is your CMOS battery dead?

    no

    >Can you save other changes?

    havent tried

    >Can you run a HD off of the secondary?

    I tried switching the secondary to HD and the primary to CDROM....thats what made it not bootable....maybe I should try putting an HD on both instead of the CDROM on primary...

    >Do you have two known good hard drives that you can put one as a Primary master and one as a secondary master.

    yeah, sure...but that wont fix anything...

    The main problem is that the CDROM is not being detected. It is on the secondary IDE cable...

    I have tried taking the HD to other computers in my house, except for the one I am on, because this is the family one, and installing Windows 9x on the HD from those computers, but there were problems every time I tried installing a diff. version of Windows...

    I am going to take it to a friends comp tomorrow and see if we can get Windows on it from his comp....

    If I can get Windows on it, it will most likely detect that CDROM...
    My Website

    "Circular logic is good because it is."

  14. #14
    train spotter
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    >>>Do you have two known good hard drives that you can put one as a Primary master and one as a secondary master.

    It would prove that both your IDE controlers and cables are working. Isolating the problem with the CD ROM.

    (silly question; You do have the jumpers slave / master set on the CD ROM / HD ? HD should / has to be the master)
    "Man alone suffers so excruciatingly in the world that he was compelled to invent laughter."
    Friedrich Nietzsche

    "I spent a lot of my money on booze, birds and fast cars......the rest I squandered."
    George Best

    "If you are going through hell....keep going."
    Winston Churchill

  15. #15
    _B-L-U-E_ Betazep's Avatar
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    >>>If I can get Windows on it, it will most likely detect that CDROM...


    Nope... if it isn't in your bios... it isn't available on windows. It my not be an autodect cdrom. Can you set the setting as CDROM manually?

    If you can do this, then you are golden for the most part (unless your CDROM is broken). You don't need to take your entire computer over to your friends house... just the HD. My friend brought his over, I took out one of mine... placed in his... partitioned, formatted, installed windows and he took it back and dropped it into is machine. Up came windows. We did this because he didn't have a cdrom at all.

    Something to consider. Good luck. Can't beleive you are still working on that thing... lol
    Blue

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