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computer won't load operating system

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by derekms34

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I was having a problem getting my computer load an operating system. I have an old Compaq with an 1800 athlon processor. I had windows xp home edition on my computer and also installed ubuntu linux 7.10. For a while, the dual boot was workinig but recently, i haven't been able to get my computer to load anything. I start it up and Bios recognizes hardware and does the POST. BIOS tells also that a secondary master hard drive failed then it gives me two options. The two options are F1 if you want to enter cmos, and F2 to continue. I press F2 and the computer doesn't do anything so i then press F1 and i get inside CMOS settings, but i'm unable to change anything so i can really only get as far the CMOS settings before i turn my computer, and start my computer again to no available. Can someone give me some assistance.

3 replies

by sbrown95

you only have one hard drive it looks like it might be connected to the Secondary master(e.g. the first hard drive on the secondary controller). I would start by replacing the drive to see if that solves the problem. If you don't have that option, try to move the hard drive to the other controller - disconnecting an optical drive if necessary. Depending on the result this will rule out/in a controller failure.

Also note that "Hard drive failed" and "hard disk boot failed" are two completely different messages. if you are really getting the latter, you may have to reinstall/repair the bootstrap loader on your hard disk and/or the master boot record on the drive. Hope any of this helps.
Good luck!

by oh smeg

Use The Ultimate Boot CD to test your Hardware and boot off the CD.

http://tinyurl.com/3jnpy

You may have to alter the Boot Order in BIOS to boot off the CD and then run the Diagnostic Tests on the HDD firstly then the RAM and the CPU. If all these pass run some of the HDD Repair Utilities as the file system may be corrupted.

Of course if you find a problem you will need to rectify it before proceeding any further.

Post back if you need any more help.

Col

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