Can't Get to C Prompt/No Boot

[heidrichj]

Hi,

I accidentally posted this in the GENERAL DISCUSSION area. This is where I thought I was. Here goes:

Computer won't boot. I turn it on, it checks the A drive, detects HDD and CD-ROM, it goes through PCI Device Listing showing IDE controller, Serial Bus Controller and
Display Adapter then hangs.

I built this P-200 system with a Tyan MOBO a year or two ago and can't get it to boot
with a floppy, either. The floppy starts and stops and the HDD runs a bit and the system
hangs. Last night I installed a new A drive and checked all connectors, but still
nothing using even a simple boot diskette.

I removed all cards but the video, which I removed and reseated. The keyboard seems to work, but I can't do a warm boot.

BIOS settings look OK.

Can't even get to C prompt.

My 5 year old nephew was messing with the computer, and the way my dad (it's
his, not mine) turns ot on and off, etc., make me think Windows is trashed, but I
can't even get to DOS to see anything.

A few things come to mind, bad floppy controller, maybe a bad mobo, maybe some
corrosion I can't see from this computer being across the street from the beach
for two years.

Any other ideas?

Is there anything significant about the place it hangs up?

Thanks,
John

[socalgal]

Dominus (and heidrichj) Re: Your reply to this post in General - My error. I should have moved your post to this thread before closing the other. My apologies.

Dominus' reply: http://www.sysopt.com/forum/Forum1/HTML/002380.html

[Exlr8er2]

Heat sounds like the problem check cpu fan
also move mem around sometimes marginal mem
modules will count correctly at post later to halt system or other problems

[Chainsaw]

heidrichj,
Do you get any beeps as error messages, if so, this could help you diagnose the prob. at least it should indicate a bad vidio card or memory.
Have you tried going into the BIOS and setting to bios defaults, re specifing your floppy and letting the bios find your HD. Could just be a setting got changed inadvertently.
Best of luck,
Chainsaw

[This message has been edited by Chainsaw (edited 11-13-1999).]

[Susan]

It does sound like you need to reset the BIOS. Maybe that 5 year old got in there when no one was looking... /forum/wink.gif

[Butchk]

You took the words right out of my mouth Susan. I had the same problem with a friends computer. It would go through the mem check and then hang up. I pulled the battery jumper for a minute then reset up the CMOS and everything worked fine. Good call Susan /forum/smile.gif

[davem]

Just one thing before we all get to technical
Have you tried to boot to safe mode (ctrl or F8 while booting)
Just a thought !!!!!

[Axel]

dave - sounds like he isn't making it to the 'Starting Windows 95' prompt which means he won't get to safe mode.

I'd have to agree that probably the BIOS or possibly the video BIOS could be the problem. Also, is your boot hard drive on a SCSI adapter? - Those have a BIOS as well.

The worse thing it might be is actually a BIOS virus, perhaps a boot sector virus. If you can get to it, flashing the BIOS would reset and clear the main BIOS and should allow your system to boot. Best bet then is to have a friend create a clean win95 boot floppy on their systems and try booting off that.

Start scrounging the drawers for your driver disks and CD's for your components, I'm betting you'll probably end up re-installing.

Next - get a friend to download the latest anti-virus definitions for whatever anti-v you use and plan to run a sweep the moment you can get back into your system.

If there is something extremely important on the hard drive, you could always slave it to a friends system and see if you can back those things up. Do a virus sweep there if you get the chance - don't reboot the friend's system until that's done as you may be infecting it should you actually happen to have a virus running.

On the other hand, you might end up finding the hard drive has a problem - not good file table, etc. etc...

[DHatAVI]

I had a problem like this with a computer that was brought to me for repair, If I remember correctly, it had a faulty HDD data cable, or it was not correctly installed. Once I replaced it and reset the BIOS, it booted.

David