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Thread: Compaq on death march.

  1. #1
    Gone Fishin' ukulele's Avatar
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    Compaq on death march.

    A friend dropped off a Compaq Presario 5240 and said he just wants it out of his life. He claimed it never worked right from day one and was returned while on warrenty several times. I pulled the crappy 110watt PSU out so I could see if the hsf fan was working. It was completely blocked by an IDE cable and was running way to hot. OK so I fixed that and now it is cooling fine. What it is doing is continually and unpredictably corrupting the harddrive. The harddrive was replaced and had a factory refurbished drive in it. It refused to reformat so I pulled the drive and hooked it up to my test computer. The drive works just fine in that junker and after reformatting and running through scandisk it looks fine. I put another smaller drive in the Compaq that I have been using as a backup drive for several months and tried a restore from the origional Compag restore disk. It refused to reformat the drive and promptly crashed. I managed to load win98se after several restarts and it worked for several reboots. Now that drive is getting currupted just like the old one. It too does not reformat right in the Compaq but is OK once it is reformatted in the test box. I think the cpu is fine as it runs from a boot floppy no problems at all, for hours on end. I suspect a bios viris. Is there another obvious reason why the hard drive would keep getting files corrupted only in the Compaq? I've checked all the obvious things like connections, ram and the other drives. Can a faulty PSU cause file corruption? It's a priority PSU and I have no spare to check it with. I am ready to scrap it for parts.

  2. #2
    Ultimate Member AllGamer's Avatar
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    IDE controller problem

    i can bet if you use a Promise or any other PCI controller all those files corruption will go away


  3. #3
    Mod w/ an attitude Sterling_Aug's Avatar
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    Download and flash update to the latest BIOS.

    If that fails to fix it, put in a different controller card like AllGamer said. I have an old ISA controller for $10 plus shipping if you are interested.

  4. #4
    Gone Fishin' ukulele's Avatar
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    Thanks guys, I'm thinking along the same lines. I think I have an old isa controller card in the bone pile, but I'll keep your offer in mind sterling. I'll try the bios flash first. Lottsa luck with Compaq bios. I'll say one thing it sure looks like a juicy tart.

  5. #5
    Ultimate Member rmanet's Avatar
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    Most older compaqs had two partitions, one was the diagnostics partition that allowed you to access bios using F10 using that part of the HDD, the other partition (C drive) was for the OS and apps.

    could be why you set up in the other box, everything's great then you put it in the compaq and ???

    I just wiped out a HDD on an older compaq (deskpro 4000, really old 233mmx) so I could fix and reformat, etc. - knowing full well I'd not have access to the bios setting w/o the setup disks (download 'em from compaq) if I did just the usual fdisk, format and reinstall

    is this the case in this machine?

    if you just used fdisk and reformatted you don't have that diagnostics partition and the bios may not be seeing the drive correctly - mine didn't until I ran the setup disks - puts me into bios, then ID the drive (disable the translation because it was a larger 8.4 gig drive), then reboot?

    I had real unpredictable results until I:

    1. zapped the drive,
    2. did the typical fdisk and format from a dos diskette
    3. made sure bios was right using the compaq setup disks, including boot order a: c:, then
    4. saved changes and rebooted to the A floppy and installed w98se
    5. remember that if your compaq is similar, anytime you want to get to bios w/o that stupid diagnostics partition is to keep the 2 setup diskettes handy

    runs great now - finished up last week and gonna put one in one of my kid's classroom - they have an ancient MAC and most of the school learning programs still run on the slower pentiums

  6. #6
    Gone Fishin' ukulele's Avatar
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    Thanks for the tips rmanet. I was researching what I could on Compaqs site and figured it was something like this. It doesn't make sense that the controller card or corrupted bios would work fine in DOS but not in windows. I found a download for a restore diskette from Compaq. I hope this is the right one. All I have is a restore CD. I also found a bios update. I'll try your suggestions first.

  7. #7
    Ultimate Member Strawbs's Avatar
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    Are you sure one of those Compratt "Tech" guys didn't leave a magnetic screwdriver bit in the case?

  8. #8
    Ultimate Member AllGamer's Avatar
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    i doubt the Diagnostic partition can cause all these problems

  9. #9
    Gone Fishin' ukulele's Avatar
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    Are you sure one of those Compratt "Tech" guys didn't leave a magnetic screwdriver bit in the case?
    Could be, I'll see if I can suck it out with my fishing magnet if all else fails. Who ever installed the HD sure had their head stuck in a bung hole.

    AG, let's hope your are wrong, it's quick and sweet with this puppy or into the meat grinder it goes. I love hush puppies.
    Last edited by ukulele; 09-30-2002 at 05:08 PM.

  10. #10
    Gone Fishin' ukulele's Avatar
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    3. made sure bios was right using the compaq setup disks, including boot order a: c:, then
    No Go. the setup diskette program from Compaq will not format the diskette with my new computer (XP1800+, Win 98se). The diskette is new and just formatted. On a positive note I zapped the drive and the restore CD repartioned it successfully and is reformating now. We shall see!
    Last edited by ukulele; 09-30-2002 at 05:33 PM.

  11. #11
    Gone Fishin' ukulele's Avatar
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    I completed a full restore but it still only boots to safe mode. Still got some kinda weird bug.

  12. #12
    Senior Member mcool61's Avatar
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    I fdisked & formatted a compaq 7470 then the factory socalled quick restore disks wouldnt run because they didn't see the proper partitioning. That machine wouldnt boot when I got it so I had reset the cmos also. It would fdisk & format so maybe this won't help but if you don't have the right software for sure try this. Boot on the quick restore disk, while it is flashing turn on caps lock. Right before it stopps flashing turn off num lock. You should get a slightly different menu, you may have to start the restore disk again. Eventually it will ask for a id floppy that came with your computer, keep pressing space bar till you get options. Hopefully your machine will be listed.

  13. #13
    Guest leprechaun_40's Avatar
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    I used to do tech support for compaq, throw it away The cost and aggravation is not worth the effort to fix one of them. They are the WORST design and cheapest parts you can find. Highly proprietary and difficult if not impossible to upgrade or fix.

    Don't waste your time, scrap the P.O.S. and salvage what's worth anything. The rest makes a decent door stop

  14. #14
    Gone Fishin' ukulele's Avatar
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    Well I tried but it is now completely dead. I almost had it restored and it went into complete cardiac arrest. Now won't even boot from the floppy. May it rest in hell were it belongs. Sausage time!

  15. #15
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    It is impossible to get a Promise Controller card to work in an older Compaq. System will freeze during post. I tried this on 2 older Deskpros (2000 Pentium Pro & 4000 P2 266mhz). I updated the BIOS and still No Go. Maybe it will work on some of the newer models but the best fix for a Compaq is a toss in the "Recycle Bin".
    That F-10 BIOS/Diagnostic partition is really an assinine idea.

    www.compaqsucks.com


    PS:If he is your real true friend, he would not give you a Compaq.
    LOL!!!
    Last edited by murray1; 09-30-2002 at 11:07 PM.

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