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Cannot boot computer

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by caribguy76

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My Win XP machine gave me the blue screen of death yesterday. Then when I rebooted, during POST, I got a messaqe that no hard drive was present. I tried rebooting once again and now get absolutely nothing. Not even a beep. If I remove the memory sticks from the machine, I get beep codes that tell me the memory is missing. If I put either or both sticks back in, nothing happens when I turn it on. Is there something that I'm missing in troubleshooting? Thanks for your help. Steve

6 replies

by zlitocook

Did you write down what the blue screen said, the first line will give you some idea of the problem. It could be that the hard drive has gone bad or the memory. Do you have spares of any thing around to try? How old is the computer if it is still under warrenty do not do any thing else to it and contact the company that sold it to you.
If it is not under warrenty think about taking it to a shop, it will cost you but they have every thing on hand. For a problem like this it could be a long list of things and could take you days to figure out.

by jkn1ck

You did not specify type of PC. Some have a harddisk diagnostics built in. try going to the bios and see if there is a test to run. It should give you an error code if there is anything wrong with the harddrive. Then you can give that info to tech support.

by maxwell edison

Boot up on the Windows CD. You might have to go into the BIOS to define the CD as the first boot device. From there, you can go into the Windows recovery console that will be an option on the CD. That will tell you whether or not your Windows installation is recoverable and/or if the hard drive is accessible. If you don't even get far enough in the boot process to get into the BIOS, you most likely have a bad motherboard.

by hal 9000

Well if you are getting nothing I would guess that it's the M'Board that is at fault but before you try trashing that I would replace the Lithium Battery and try again. Just remember before removing the old battery to unplug the mains and you should be OK.

Once you replace the Battery you should be given the option that you have an error press F1 to continue of some other key to enter BIOS. Press the Key to enter BIOS and set the Date & Time make sure that the HDD section is set to Auto and exit saving your changes. It should work from that stage on.

If you get nothing at all after replacing the battery then your most likely option is that the M'Board has passed away though if you are getting error beeps when there is no RAM Present this doesn't sound likely either. I would try a different monitor just to make sure that you don't have a faulty one. It's a major problem when that happens particularly when it's your own test one as you don't expect it to go bad.

But none of your description makes any sense even if Windows totally caked itself you should still be seeing a POST Screen nd then some message about there being no OS present please insert a Boot Disc and press any key to continue. It's possible that the power suffered a surge or ripple which has thrown the system into a mess so just unplugging it for about 30 seconds should cure that problem if that's what happened.

But if that doesn't work you'll be stuck to checking parts in a known good system until you find the faulty part.

Col

by azudean

hi....

i think the porblem come from ur harddisk...hv u try change ur harddisk wt another???

by ctmoore1998

Disconnect the HARD drive IDE cable and power. Does system POC now? If so the HDD is the problem - replace. If not get the MB manual and look up the jumper to CLEAR CMOS. Make sure you unplug power before attempting to clear CMOS. Leave HDD disconnected attempt to power up unit again. If still no POC then MB is suspect.

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