Machine won't fire up

[Lostamarble]

sorry i was not more help but if you come up with a fix please post.
it's a problem i have not come across completely so im interested.

[kenboyles72]

Start of basic, remove/unplug everything except 1 vid card, cpu and 1 stick mem and see if you can get into bios. If you can then get into bios, one of your other hardware is faulty. If after removing other hardware and still cant get into bios, maybe mobo or psu is faulty. If you can get into bios after removing the hardare, start adding 1 piece at a time till you get the same malfunction, this will narrow down what is causing the fault.

[Dj-Icer]

Could this be a power supply?

How can a machine shuts off when you tried to log on and all. So my guess would be the power supply.

If you have another power supply, try have it replace. See what happens. If everything else fails, wait for your mobo. Just a little help that I can do.

[wolf905]

No problem this is the first time I've tried this, but I was at my wits end. Right now I'm "easter eggin" it! I'm a little upset with myself. I can usually figure a hardware problem out. Now software.......I'm lost from the git go! When I figure this out I'll definately let you know.

[electric]

"I know for me I MUST remove any ide drives if want to use my sata drives.
Computer wil not respond if both installed. Or at least go to load xp."

i usually just change the boot order in the BIOS to which drives i
want to boot to

[wolf905]

I tried both ways. Pulling the drive altogether and just changing the boot order.

[wolf905]

I think you are on the right track. This system is in an 18 wheeler. I'm starting to think that it's not in the system at all. It may be the inverter I'm running to supply power.

[wolf905]

I was thinking the mobo or the cpu. I'll know better tomorrow. I'll plug into a regular wall socket then.

[rynth_tech]

Transferring xp? you didnt just copy the files did you?

Anyway, thats not a windows problem, its a hardware problem..

Have you overclocked that CPU? Cus' it sounds like you system is overheating and then re-booting ( pc's do this is it gets to hot! well, most of the time..)

Its H/W problem, for sure.

[wolf905]

Seems to have been the power supply. But now I don't get a signal to the monitor. Would that be because I can't hook up the 12v aux power on the mo
bo?

[CElloyd]

After reading you post quite a few times.

I am getting the feeling you had an ide drive installed.
Then added a sata drive and installed xp on the sata?
So in reality you had 2 xp installs which is like a dual boot system.
All worked fine until the reboot, then it seems the Master Boot Record would be incorrect (MBR) , this might need the MBR Fix.

I could be wrong in everything I said above but don't really see the whole picture of what you did actually.

I know for me I MUST remove any ide drives if want to use my sata drives.
Computer wil not respond if both installed. Or at least go to load xp.

I install xp with just the sata drive in, hit F6 at prompt to load my sata raid drivers,
then install xp as normal.
Then i must reboot and go back into xp.
Turn off computer.
Add my ide drives, then windows detects the drives and all is normal.

If I do not do what I said above there is no possible way for me to get mine to work. I tried many different ways.

Lets say you had xp installed on the ide drive, then you installed xp on the sata drive. Well many people (including myself) have gone to their ide drive and delete everything they think they can now delete.

Little do they know there are files on there needed to make xp function on the next reboot.

Maybe I helped maybe I did not.

How about a little more info on how and what you exactly did.

Ok, I have done this exactly. Is there any way to fix the MBR to look for the SATA drive? If I unplug all the IDE's will it work? I'm in unchartered territory here...

[quickoldcar]

Yes by using the fixmbr command.

Here is how to do it directly from microsoft.

http://www.microsoft.com/resources/d....mspx?mfr=true

the commands are written in the next section below.

"FIXMBR" is what you want.


might even want to do a "chkdsk -r" first as well

[CElloyd]

Yes by using the fixmbr command.

Here is how to do it directly from microsoft.

http://www.microsoft.com/resources/d....mspx?mfr=true

the commands are written in the next section below.

"FIXMBR" is what you want.


might even want to do a "chkdsk -r" first as well

Ok, so I'm booting from my XP Pro disk, I will get to the recovery console and run the FIXMBR and see what happens. I have unplugged the power to my other 2 IDE drives. Sound good so far?

I don't know much about the MBR but if it was using one on my previous IDE C drive until I deleted it, will there be an MBR on this SATA drive or does this command create one?

The CHKDSK -r is doing something...says:

CHKDSK is performing additional checking or recovery...

Ok, it seems to be stuck at 54%.

And what should I take away from these notes on the Microsoft site:

•If you do not specify a device_name, a new master boot record will be written to the boot device, which is the drive on which your primary system is loaded.
•If an invalid or nonstandard partition table signature is detected, you will be prompted whether you want to continue. If you are not having problems accessing your drives, you should not continue. Writing a new master boot record to your system partition could damage your partition tables and cause your partitions to become inaccessible.

[CElloyd]

I tried to boot after FIXMBR and got Invalid partition table message.

Anymore ideas? I have information I'd rather not lose on this drive and the C drive for that matter. I may need to shop for a new drive to get a working Op System and then recover my data from there? I will be able to access this drive won't I??