Posted on 02/13/2007 4:39:16 PM PST by sonsofliberty2000
I recently formatted and reinstalled Windows to my computer, a Pentium 4 2.3ghz system. Before a reboot I installed Nvidia drivers and installed my HP printer. During the install of my printer it had a conflict with my external hard drive. I turned off the external hard drive and finished the install and went to reboot. Right before the reboot an error message with a red X symbol came up and counted down to 30 seconds to turn off. Once it turned off I went to reboot and it would not boot. I hear no POST beeps, the fans turn on and s forth but nothing happens. Nothing comes up on my monitor either. I have tried both my PCI video card (the aforementioned Nvidia card) and my Intel video card that is built in. I really need this computer to work for school and cannot afford costly repair bills currently. All help will be greatly appreciated!
I can't help you but what you experienced sounds scary (in terms of getting your computer back up & running. Good luck.
The Flux Capacitor needs to be initialized.
And that comment was helpful . . . how?
That is what I get for boosting the power to one point twenty nine jigawatts.
Going now to try this!
Boot sectors or master boot records (MBR) rarely become corrupt. If they do you need very specialized software to even get to the MBR and track zero on the drive.
One alternative would be to perform a factory style low level format and then do the logical format. Then you would be installing a generic DOS boot record. He might try FDisk and re install the boot record but better to start all over.
Not trying to be snarky, just FYI
Is it plugged in?
Does your computer drink holder work?
Ahh the beauty of SCSI and Unix. Fdisk.
You obviously don't know ANYTHING about flux capacitors.
Then listen for fans. About half of all failures are the power supply. Try a the spare power supply. (you do have a spare don't you?)
Assuming good power and monitor what you need to do is 'Yank and Spank'.
Yank all the cards out, yank the cables off the HD, DVD, floppy, printer etc. Leave the CPU and RAM in place, make sure the old school PC speaker is hooked up (assuming you've got one).
Turn it on (spank it). Listen for a beep. If it beeps you've got life.
If it doesn't beep yank all but one stick of RAM. Spank again. (bad RAM should get you beep codes though.) If it still doesn't boot try a different stick of RAM (at that point your pretty hosed). Still nothing. Get a new mother board, they're cheap.
If it does beep check for POST video. If you get video with nothing but MB, CPU and RAM then start adding one device back at a time. Spanking between changes.
That should have been filtered through the disgronificator.
When I reconfigure my machine, I do it in stages, and reboot in between stages so that everything is "comfortable."
Well, I'm a fan of sonsofliberty, but I havent a clue as to what happened.
True
Am I to assume that explains you attitude towards someone who needs help.
O Lord, we beseech thee to drive away the evil demons that have taken their abode in this computer.
Try disabling your PCI video adapter and go with your onboard. If that doesn't work, disable the onboard and remove the PCI card. Check to see that your processor is seated and that all the fans are working--lots of bioses will shut down the computer automatically if the system overheats. I had a similar problem one time with overheating--I had just installed a new system board and loaded Windows. Suddenly the machine went down and wouldn't boot. I opened the chassis and found the wires connecting my processor fan to the board were sitting on top of the fan and keeping it from turning. I moved the wires and everything booted up just fine.
Thank God I have a Mac.
What about Geek Squad?!
What did the error message say? That's everything right now to figuring it out. Sorry if I missed the answer while skimming.
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