Computer won't boot, but goes to BIOS.

I've tried booting up my computer for a couple days, but nothing seems to work. One of my siblings has a small amount of knowledge about computers, but not enough to be able to tell me what's wrong.

Here's my major issue: I had someone build my computer from scratch for me about 3 or 4 years ago. I no longer have any contact with this person, nor do I have any wish to contact them again. I have absolutely no clue about serial numbers, brands, or specifics on any of these because this person kept all the purchase paperwork, boxes, and instructions that came with parts that were ordered, including my CD of Windows XP. I remember that most of what was purchased came from Tigerdirect and Newegg, but I don't suppose that would really help.

I run Windows XP on my 40G HD. I've got my original 4G(I think it's a 4 or 5G, soemthing small) hard drive I've got running as a slave that has Windows 98 on it. I can get into the BIOS (but once I'm in there, I'm not too sure what to look for or to do). The computer use to at least beep when it booted, but after my sibling went into my BIOS and looked around and fiddled with connection cables, it won't even do this. And now, most of the time it won't even read that there are HDs attached to it.

What will happen is this- I'll turn it on and it will go to the initial screen with a logo and the option at the bottom of pressing Delete to enter the BIOS or TAB to see this alternate screen. If I hit TAB it gives me information about some company in Phenoix and gives me for IDE Channel listings. I've only been able to write down the first two due to how fast this screen normally disappears. They are:

IDE Channel 0 Master: WDC WD400BB-00DGA0 05.03E05

and

IDE Channel 0 Slave: WDC AC22100H 12.07H12

From there, it goes to the next screen which lists Pri. Master Disk, Pri. Slave Disk, etc. However, since the tinkering, these now only read None.

At the bottom, I get:

Verifing DMI Pool Data ................
Boot From CD: DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER

(Which, by the way, I do not have.)

I don't know if that helps at all or not.

Long story short, I want to fix this computer by myself, rather than reduce myself to having to call or contact this person, who unfortunately seems to be the only person who was ever in my life who knows computers beyond identifying parts (which I myself can somewhat do) and a few connection cables. Where should I start?


Thanks,
Kaela

 

Too bad the seller took most everything from you.

On a working pc, go to youtube, search for "diy pc", look at how they build a pc. Google memtest and download it to a disk.

Power off, unplug power cord, wait 1 min, double-check the connections like cables, connectors, cpu, cpu fan, memory, video card, etc. If in doubt, unplug and plug it back. Blow the dust out with a can of compressed air from walmart's computer section.

Remove the battery from the motherboard, short the nearby 2 pins labelled "CLR" or "CMOS" with the tip of a ball pen or pencil for 10 seconds, put battery back in. Plug power cord in, Power on, press DEL for bios, load defaults, save & exit.

If you have to press TAB for text POST screen, your motherboard is showing a graphic splashscreen at boot. It can be disabled in bios. The wording varies from board to board. Should be in the 2nd or 3rd menu.

Insert memtest disk & let it do 5 passes. Could take hours. If it errors out, remove all but 1 stick of memory, test it until you find the bad stick. If all check out, read on.

Try to boot up windows. If it blue screens, write down the error code 0x000000?? and any offending filename. Google them.

 

Akhilles gave good advice. Maybe we can narrow things down a bit. Why did your sibling have to go into BIOS? What was the original problem with starting up your PC?

I would think if it was showing a Primary and Slave HD before tinkering that unplugging the computer and removing the battery (watch style disc battery) for a few minutes then replacing and plugging back in should reset BIOS to defaults without shorting the jumpers. [Offered to simplify things so you don't get overwhelmed not to contradict akhilles; mine works this way]

 

Even for those with considerable experience of building pcs, resolving some problematic issues eg non booting, can be somewhat taxing and complex.

Please do not misunderstand the following comments but in your shoes and given the amount of knowledge you have displayed in respect of pcs, I would respectfully suggest that you contact the person who built you this pc and request help, especially if you have data which is of value to you on your hdd.

Good Luck

 

Erm thanks for your suggestion risk_reversal, but... I'd rather pay a few hundred and have Geek Squad at Best Buy fix it than have anything to do with the person who made my computer, and I can't stress that enough. To me, it is not an option, no matter how bad it seems. Besides, if I was crazy enough to ask for help, it's almost certain that this person would strip it for parts. This person used to fix computers around where I live, but take parts that the owner of the computers wouldn't miss because "they're not using them, so they won't miss them." As I don't believe this lack of ethics was in any way right, as well as other reasons I won't meantion on here, I would rather do it myself. I hope you understand.

As the only computer I have use of that connects to the internet is the one at work and the boss has blocked youtube, sach2, I would like to follow your approach.

The error or whatever it was that was causing the disk boot failure was happening before my older brother went into the BIOS. All he really did in BIOS was to see if things were reading like normal, and then later, to boot up the computer using my slave, which he was able to do. After he did this and he took out or switched a few cables, I was able to boot my computer using my main drive. He informed me that he unplugged the slave drive and this was why I was able to boot up, claiming it might be a faulty cable. However,
it hasn't booted up since I turned it off, over nearly two weeks ago. And since I turned it off, it has stopped reading that I have HDs attached.

Does this help at all or no?

 

In the first instance please update the above...Since the secondary HDD has been removed I guess the bios will not now detect that item.

If things are going too fast for you to read then press the Pause button on your keyboard and this will stop the sequence. Press the Space bar to restart.

Can you still boot into your bios?
If so go to Standard CMOS Features. This page will list your HDD and optical eg cd, dvd drives. Your lone HDD will be listed as Primary Master. Try to get the bios to redetect the HDD. There will be a menu that you can enter.

While in the bios go to Advanced Bios Features and look for a boot order sequence eg First Boot Device, 2nd Boot Device, Third Boot Device.
If you have a floppy drive then the sequence will be 1. Floppy, 2. HDD & 3. CCDRom eg optical drive. Check that these are correctly listed.

Save and exit your bios.

The above is saying that once the bios has finished initialising it passes the process over to a bootable drive. The system is trying to boot from the CDRom finds no o/s and gives the above message.

Now in theory the pc will try to boot from the ordering sequence in your bios so just need to make sure it's correct. If it is then the problem could lie with your HDD.

Prior to doing that I would suggest a simple hw intergrity check namely booting from a dos bootable floppy. Think they have one on this site.

If you can boot to dos without issues then at this early stage, the problem could be faulty hdd, faulty motherboard controller (the port that the HDD is connected to on the mobo) or faulty cable.

To test for a faulty hdd download the manufacturers diagnostic prod (you have a WD drive) and put it on a floppy disk then boot the pc with the floppy in the floppy drive and run the test diagnostics.

EDIT: I would also make sure that the HDD currently in the pc is jumpered correctly. You may have to take it out (make sure you touch a radiator to discharge yourself). i would ensure that the jumper on your HDD is set as Master. I would also suggest doing this first. As a last point make sure the drive is connected to the end connector on the data cable ie the grey 2" wide cable

Good Luck

 

Forgot to add that in addition to the above there is is also the possibility that the bootable drive's MBR / Partition Tables may be corrupted.

 

It could be something simple like replacing the ide ribbon or changing the jumper settings on the hard drive after removing the slave. Some hard drives have two master jumper positions, one says "master alone" and the other "master with slave" If yours has that and it was on "master with slave", when the slave was removed the jumper should have been moved to "master alone".

In that case it could be that the old 98 drive is failing and causing the pc to not boot but when your brother pulled the slave it booted ok until the pc was shut down and restarted. Many hard drives have a legend on top that indicates which two pins to short with the plastic jumper block for which designation. If your legend has master with or without slave, correct it to indicate there is no longer a slave drive