I need help formatting my Win2k Pro based comp

[cin587]

Hi I have this following system:
AMD Athlon Thunderbird 1.33 Ghz
512 MB stick and 256 MB stick of PC133 RAM (768 MB total)
Geforce 2 Mx 32 MB version Video Card
Sound Blaster Audigy X-Gamer Sound Card
Via KT7a RAID motherboard
40 GB IBM 7200 RPM HD
Running Win2k Pro

My question is how do I format my computer if it wont start up? It loads to the screen where the password box is about to come up and then the monitor loses signal and it starts reading endlessly from my dvd drive and my hard drive.(the lights just stay busy the whole time) if I try to power it off via the button it starts making a stuttering sound and refuses to turn off. I end up having to hit the main power switch on the back of the tower. Im wondering if theres sumthin gone wrong on my hard drive (i.e. virus). As I've been typing this I've been reminded of somthing else I've heard. I recall that the Sound Blaster Platinum wasn't compatible with the KT7a RAID motherboard.....could that be the problem maybe with my Sound Blaster Audigy? Maybe you'll see somthing I don't. Please help me if u can. :confused:

[Bovon]

First of all, formatting is the wrong term here...when you format a computer (hard drive) you wipe it clean to strart over with a new reload (or a new hard drive to begin with).

Not critizing, just getting the terminalogy right so thet others might look in on your request.

You need to take all of your hardware out of the computer except the video card, hard drive, ect. Just disconnect the ribbon cable from the CD DVD, ect and see if the problem goes away.

Yes, the sound blaster live cards did have a lot of conflicts earlier this year. VIA tried to cure the problem with several VIA driver upgrades. I don't know how well this went because I do not use the SB Live sound system. If after you have removed the extra stuff, and the computer seems to run ok, add items back one at a time...if the problem returns, after a certain item has been added back, you will then know where your problem lies. Go into device manager and remove the extra stuff, sound, modem, video...ect, shut down and remove the cards...(you can use an older non gaming video card at this point to see if maybe your video card is part of the problem).

Putting your finger on any one item and saying that is the cause of the problem dosn't happen, it takes trying this and that to see where the conflict is. If it were me, I think I would suspect the sound card and start there with the trouble shooting.

If it turns out to be the SB Live card, load the latest VIA drivers...but, you need to remove all other drivers first. The VIA drivers need to be loaded before anything else...and sometimes its hard or maybe impossible to remove all of the sound, video, modem...ect drivers once they have been installed. Most guys reformat and start over and load the VIA drivers first.

[cin587]

I see what your saying, but maybe I didn't clarify my situation too well. I was looking to "format" my harddrive as I was partially sure it would fix the problem. I have had problems in the past and fixed them as they occured. My video card has been here since the birth of my system and has never been ruled out as a problem with removing my hardware. Ive replaced every item in my computer at least once except my sound card. I've also read up on some power supply problems that can occur and of which I was wondering about. My computer seems to identify as this power problem and I plan to buy a name brand power supply and see how it goes. (*I forgot to mention that I have a globalwin Fop-xx as my fan/heatsink combo over my processor and some other fans strewn about in my tower.) I say the power supply because in the other thread I read that random restarts doing normal operation and start-up lock-ups are supposed to be symptoms of a poor power supply. I hope this helps. I will continue to add to this as I remember what I left out :D And thanks for your help and comments. Please help me as much as you can I need all the insight I can get.

[Bovon]

Power supplies do cause many problems...and just because somebody has a power supply rated at more than enough watts, doen't necessarily mean the supply is doing its job good. Any power supply of this type takes 120 VAC houshold current and changes it to the required DC voltage needed to run a computer. That act of changing AC to DC is called 'recitifying', and then has to be filtered good to get the remains of any carry over of the AC out of the resulting DC. If any AC component of the original AC is not filtered out, and is allowed to get thru to the computer circuits, it can (and usually does) cause all sorts of problems. The circuits and chipsets in a computer cannot stand poorly filtered DC. This is very diffucult to determine without test equipment.

I still think I would try removing that SB live sound card and see if that helps.

If you need to reformat and start over, you will need a Win98 system boot disk with format.com and fdisk.exe on it to do the job. Well, you will not really need fdisk if all you want to do is reformat the original hard drive as it is now. There is a site where you can go download boot disks...I have never looked at the site, and it may or may not contain format.com and fdisk.exe on the disk you will download.

http://www.bootdisk.com/

Check the site out and see what it offers.

I have seen posts about video ram onboard the card getting flaky and causing problems...try another video card if possible.