Installing heatsink/fan combo over CPU

At this point, My Computer doesn't recognize the DVD drive or the floppy drive and therefore doesn't recognize the Windows CD or a floppy in the floppy drive. I went into Disk Management but when I highlighted the C drive, the option to format is grayed out. Is there another way to format the drive?

 

Some of the criticism certain members have for me again is very constructive criticism, but just criticism. If everybody really knows even one little part of what is going on (even one thing is responsible for what problem) and to keep that for himself it is an offense. I really hope that to think is still no offense. Just look at my posts and if you find out something so wrong in the above criticize then. Oh yeah, I never said I was wrong either.

 

Sorry for any unintended criticism, it has been a group effort, and Walter's IRQ method, is as good a way to try to solve the issue, as any.
If you like, I just wanted to allow Denise, a choice.
Formatting seemed to be a clean start on a way forward, that was why I asked if all agreed, I apologise if it sounded like I did not agree with Walter. The combined efforts, of Walter, Fred, Yargill, and Asus, and I believe a nip in here and there by one, or, two others, have made Denise aware of so much, and enabled her to get this machine up, and running.
I tend to read, and digest my "mates" input, and I only differ in trying to keep things as simple as possible, so as to help the new builder, who has graduated from novice, to remember, if things go wrong, in months to come, too.
If you have not tried the IRQ's, yet Denise, I am sure Walter will take you through it like a walk in the Park and as Fred,Yargill, and Walter has said, you will become familiar with the Bios, and things like IRQ's, over a relatively short time.
Fred has explained how to Format, but you need to set your computer to seek the dvd rom first, as in Walter's post, and , start from and sometimes be quick to press any button to do so, as it starts up.
Walter confirmed that The benq drive should be the first, if you look back.
If you set the sequence, then press f10, to save and it will restart and should look into DVD drive ,first.
When you go through the sequence, and it asks where to put Windows, you will remember, on the C drive, where it already has a copy of Windows, -, and when it asks choose Full NFTS format, and you should then be o.k.

 

Hi Denise,

you mentioned in a (way) earlier post that you have a CD Drive of some description in your other computer.

Have you tried this in your new computer instead of the BenQ DVD Drive ?



On the other matter, I dont see a problem

Walter, baklogic, fred & yargwel
you all seem to be on the same page, and I am sure Denise (as well as the rest of us following this mega-thread) appreciates all of the input.
Its all good

I know Ive learnt to never build a computer from scratch -only joking

The size of this thread itself is what sometimes makes it confusing
and wires are bound to get crossed (communication wise - not pc wise hopefully)
posts cross over, posts get missed - its all par for the course
It is the multitude of ideas from all four of you (and Denise of course) that will get this computer kicking arse

Please keep up the good work - all of you

 

If you decided to format, as all agree, but keep us posted, and if , there is still a problem, when installing the printer, then look again, at Walter's IRQ reassignment. - A clean install, should sort Windows out.

As Walter also mentioned, running sfc /scannow might have replaced damaged Windows files.

 

Hi,

To me, it would be easier and faster to reformat the hdd and then intall the Windows disk and then the Driver & Utility CD. But I can't reformat the drive because My Computer doesn't recognize the the DVD Drive, nor can I reformat by going into Disk Management, because when I highlight and right click on the C drive, the format option is grayed out.

I mentioned in an earlier post that I tried to change the boot sequence in Advanced BIOS but the choice for first boot device doen't include the floppy drive. The only choices are: Removable, Hard Disk, CDROM, USB-CDROM, Legacy Lan, and Disable, so I didn't change anything. Since this was the first step and it couldn't be done, I stopped. Is "Removable" the floppy drive?

I can't use my DVD drive to run sfc /scannow. It asks for me to insert my Windows disk into the DVD drive but it doesn't recognize it.

My problem is that My Computer doesn't recognize my DVD and floppy drives. My printer is recognized by My Computer and works fine.

I can remove the CD drive from my old computer and see if it gets recognized by My Computer, but as a last resort.

I'll look back in the posts to find the directions on how to find the IRQ assignments/numbers and I'll post them.

Denise

 

If you want to look at IRQ's Walters your man. It is possible, as he says that if there is a conflict, you could reassign the printer, or whatever is found to be conflicting, to another IRQ.
But to format, you have to start with your Windows disc, in the dvd drive (Iassume it will still open, they usually do, then close the dvd drive, then shut down .
On starting up press del, or, f2, - the one your motherboard wants for you to get intothe Bios.
Once in the bios, chevk that cdrom is first choice - if it is not click on the first device listed, and the dropdown box enables you to use arrow up, or, down to click on cd/dvd rom (your benq).
as soon as you have done this click save and exit, or, press f10, and then enter.
Your pc will then shutdown, and restart, and you might have to keep your eye on the screen, as it can be very quick saying press any key to start from cdrom.
If you miss that and it goes into Windows, waitfor it to settle, then shut down and restart again, until you get it to run from your cd/dvd rom drive - it will -
Come back and let us know .

 

Hi,

I tried to response earlier but my computer crashed and everything I wrote in response to your posts was lost. I've been since looking for a freeware picture reducer so that I can attach a screenshot of Device Manager. I've attached a copy to this post.

 

Ok, so now to respond to some of your other questions:

1.

I can't set the boot order so that the floppy drive will be first. It's not an option under first boot order.



2.

I looked in Device Manager and didn't see "Drivers." How do I find them/where do I look?


3.

No drivers, only firmware.


4.

I have all required updates. I tried to additionally download and install SP2 but Microsoft would do it, so I guess it's installed under it's number reference or it can't be installed on X64.


5.

I tried this but it didn't help.


6.

The BenQ isn't listed in Device Manager. I have 2 items for the floppy. One is "Standard Floppy Disk Controller" and the other is "Floppy Disk Drives." Which one do you want me to delete and how do I delete it?

7. Drivers
I found a site that ran a scan of my pc. It gave me the attached report of the drivers that my pc needs. If I wanted the program to download the drivers, I'd have to pay for it. It doesn't mention the DVD drive and Device Manager no longer lists the BenQ either.

I'll address other questions in my next post.

Denise

 

Hi Denise, the benq is showing the exclamation mark, as was discussed.
If you want to go this way to see if you can find the problem, it would be nice if Walter could come back to guide you through.
But while you are looking, if you look in the computer management bax, and click on Event viewer, and look down the list, you will see some more exclamation marks, and if you double click that item, a little box will come up , with a reasob for it.
It might help, if you can tell us what these say (go down list from top to bottom.

 

Sorry I missed look in Application., and double click each yellow symbal.

 

1/ floppy not showing will not be a problem, as long as it is set to dvd/cd rom first, then your fixed hard drive.

 

2/ to see if driver is installed, you need to double click on the dvd rom indicator, and it will bring up a little box, and along the top of the box is a tab with driver on it.

 

3/ Windows does have it's own driver for it.
IN 2/ to uninstall driver press driver tab, and you will see a little box, to uninstall driver - - this is the place to uninstall it.

 

8.

Plese let me know how to do this.



9.

No, I haven't done this yet.


10.

I will try this next.

Denise

 

I will try to run through your other questions, unless someone else would like to, while you try the reformat

4/
Asus knows a lot about x64- perhaps Walter does , too.
They will know if x64 does, or, does not have the equivelent - I would surmise it does, and that it is probably already installed, but perhaps, one of the others can confirm this.

 

The ide controller , and video drivers are needed.
I use Driveragent , myself, and they are very reasonable, and I find they do find most drivers.

 

5/ -did not work - o.k
6/benq is listed on your picture , under dvd romm, 3rd or 4th item down, with yellow exclamation.
7/ you found drivers, if not formatting, at driveragent.

 

8/ IRQ'S --WALTER......... If you do need to know, perhaps Walter can run it through with you, when you want to.
9/I do not think you will need the other cd drive, but as Fred said.....
10/ ...............................................
Let us know, how it goes.

 

It must be coming up to time for some others to come on-line,as I will be off, soon.
Just a little note, if you do leave anything connected (Walter's suggestion, ) I would say leave them switched off while formatting, and reinstalling Windows, to make Windows easier to install.
I , normally, have nothing connected, and then connect them, once Windows is installed.

 

I just finished doing this procedure:

I was able to do a repair this time vs a complete format that I had to do last time.

I had a problem getting onto Internet Explorer so I was on the phone with my ISP for a while. We got it straightened out, for the most part. My Favorites has changed so that I have to open up the arrow that point downwards to view the entire list and sublist . . . I don't know why that was changed.

The BenQ is recognized by My Computer now and it works fine. A floppy drive is listed in My Computer but when I put a disk into my floppy drive, it tells me to put a disk into the floppy drive. It doesn't recognize the floppy drive that I installed in the tower.

Honest to goodness, when I took that screenshot, the DVD drive was not listed, and I was very upset that it was no longer in Device Manager. I clicked the + on each one to see if the computer put it under something else for some reason, but it wasn't there. The picture definitely shows that it's in the list, but it wasn't. I feel like I'm in The Twilight Zone. confused

 

The Floppy Drive:

I have the IDE cable connected to the floppy drive so that the end with the little nib is connected to the floppy drive and the other end is connected to the FDD1 port. I Googled FDD1 port and it said that it's for external floppy drives. It the only port on the motherboard that has the correct number of pins and matches the cable plug. The empty IDE port has too many pins for the cable plug.

Could this be the reason why My Computer isn't recognizing the floppy drive?

Denise

 

Since I repaired Windows, the Boot Sequence is set to:
1. Hard Drive
2. DVDROM
3. Removable

Is this the correct configuration?

Denise

 

Looks like you are back in bidness Denise! The boot sequence is up to you, as long as you have the hard drive somewhere on the list. Some people like to have it DVD/CD then Hard Drive, useful if you need to boot off a CD often. I would leave it like you have it.

Quick question about the floppy, and I apologize if it has been asked before, but does the led on the floppy come on at all or is it always on? And have you tried another floppy disk?

I just reread most of this thread. Damn Denise, you have learned a LOT! Good job.

E

 

The light on the floppy is on only when the computer is turned on. I've inserted 2 disks into the floppy drive and when I highlighted the Floppy A icon in My computer and clicked on format or open, I get a message to insert a disk, and the same if I double click on it. It takes about 10 seconds for my computer to tell me to insert a disk.

Could I have attached the power supply upside-down?

I tried the IDE cable every which way to Sunday and no matter which way it's plugged in, the floppy drive doesn't work. I could possibly be that the cable is no good.

 

If the light stays on all the time, you might have the IDE cable hooked up wrong. Rotate the IDE cable 180 degrees on the floppy and see what happens. If it won't plug in easily, don't force it. Could be a bad cable.

E

 

No, as I said, the light doesn't stay on all the time, only when the computer is turned on. I've tried the cable all different ways, back and forth and upside-down but no way makes a difference.

I'm going to buy a new cable. They're not expensive and if the floppy drive doesn't work with the new cable, then it's either the floppy drive or the way I have it connected to the motherboard.

Nobody's answered my question about the FDD1 port that I have the floppy connected to . . . the one that's for an external floppy drive. Could that be the reason why it's not working? Since there isn't a port on the motherboard that will accept the same size cable plug, do I need an adapter of some sort to connect it to the IDE port?

 

Could the power connecter to the floppy drive be upside-down?

 

Back in the day, the floppy cables were not 'keyed' so you could plug them in the right way or upside down. If the light on the floppy drive stays on when the computer is on, try pluging the floppy IDE cable upside down. But don't force it. you could have a bad cable.

As far as power, it the led on the floppy is on, you got the power right.

As far as the external FD thing, in my experience, most external drives plug into the case part of the computer, not the motherboard.

See if you can rotate the IDE to the floppy drive and plug it in.

E

 

Hi,

Remember PConPoint? The program that caused me to have to reformat my drive a few days ago? I wrote to PConPoint and asked them what steps I could take to reverse the damage that the program caused. I received their reply just a short while ago:

Nothing like making light of the matter. I wrote them back and asked them for a refund because the program isn't compatible with X64 as they stated. I had nothing to lose by asking.

 

Fred, you're a genious! :drink Have a drink on me!

Not only does the drive work now but I no longer have to press F1 to continue after I boot up! :celebrate

I don't understand something, maybe you can explain it to me. When I formated the disk, I had the option to format it only as FAT. I thought that I had NTFS. Where/when did FAT come in? A FAT floppy drive?

This is glorious! It's really turning into a usable computer! Not that I doubted it for a minute :innocent

Denise

 

I searched around the net and found that floppies only use FAT, so that's another mystery solved. . .

Denise

 

Re: external floppy drive

floppy drives are contained in what is known as external drive bays so that they can be accessed from the outside of the case
whereas generally hard drives are considered to be internal because they cant be seen / accessed from outside of the case

Im sure it is just to confuse people

if you take a look at this link it will explain it better than I have
http://www.kids-online.net/learn/click/details/3_5db.html

 

Glad you got it running Denise!

Yet another reason I hate the damn floppy drive. I only hook one up now for RAID drivers. Then the offending device is put back in the closet. I have never figured out why a newer technology relies on legacy drives... Well, end floppy drive rant.

E

 

You're right, it is confusing. . . it's an external but it's internal. ok.

The odd thing about it is when I had the cable connected upside-down, the light on the floppy drive was lit whenever the computer was turned on. Now it doesn't light at all, even when a floppy is in it. I don't know why I get all these odd things.

I read somewhere that an x64 system needs a floppy drive. When my computer wasn't working properly, it kept asking me to insert a floppy disk. I'm supposed to make some kind of recover disk using floppies, by I haven't looked into it much yet.

But I'm glad to know how to repair and reinstall Windows. I don't know if it's just me but it seems that my computer needs one or the other of them at least once a year to one and a half years.

Thanks for the explanation

Denise

 

No worries Denise :wave

the floppy light should be on only when the floppy drive is reading / writing

a lot of computers do not have floppy drives these days, but they can still save you a lot of heartache, I wouldnt be without one.
Even the previous version of windows (windows ME) used a floppy disk to reformat the hard drive


fairly sure someone has mentioned this already in this thread
System File Checker is part of Windows file protection, it is a microsoft tool used for repairing corrupt windows files
can potentially save you having to repair / reinstall

baklogic told me about it recently

here is a link that explains it further
http://www.updatexp.com/scannow-sfc.html

 

Good to see Fred has seen you through the floppy, and you got up and running again, with DVD drive.
If you used repair option, you should have most things already configured.?
always keep afloppy drive, and cable, it can be useful, but while a lot of sata drives still will not take up on some motherboards, (and I keep what I call a little cheats easy start, on a floppy)
DENISE, I hope you set a RESTORE POINT AS SOON AS IT WAS UP AND RUNNING,
Then at least you can get back up and running if any more haggles occur.
I would set a restore point with every extra component, or, program that you put on, can save you a lot of heartache.
Good on the pair of you.

 

Sorry, I missed Shanemail off.- The group seems to work well.

 

DeniseM, listen to Backlogic, great idea about the restore points. While I turn Win Restore off on my windows machines, I use that feature a lot on the computers at work.

E

 

I didn't think that I was going to be able to get back on the net today. We had a terrrific rainstorm last night and it lasted up until around 2pm this afternoon. My daughter has a raised ranch house . . . they live upstairs and I live downstairs (before the went to Iraq) but I left my computer downstairs. My rooms flooded. I had about 1/2" of water and a small wet/dry vac to help get some of the water up. I unplugged every connection from my computer and peripherals from the wall sockets and made sure everything was in a dry place. It was one heck of a day and I'm exhausted, but happy to see that nothing happened to my computer. My carpeting still squishes when I walk on it and the bottom of my wood furniture became warped. Definitely not a good but but I'm glad to see you guys again

Denise

 

I bought a

I thought that I was getting an adapter that had 4 external ports and it would connect inside to the SATA port with a SATA cable. When it came in the mail, it has 4 external ports and 4 internal ports. I'd have to have 4 internal SATA ports to connect to the adapter's 4 internal ports. I wrote to him and asked him if he had an adapter that I could buy so that I could use it the way I thought it was going to work. He wrote back and said

I really dislike dealing with :*** jerks.

I don't know how I'm going to connect any SATA adapter/card because there's no port for it near the rear of the case and the port doesn't support a card. It looks like SATA and X64 came out before their time. Not many devices and software are available for them yet.

Denise

 

I did make a restore point but it's already been surpassed by the computer's restore points. It makes an awful lot of them. One day, when my pc still hadn't been repaired, I looked at how much room I had left on my C drive. I gave it 50Gb and only about 7 Gb were left. My programs take up only about 10Gb, maybe 12Gb. It had included in the restore points, files from one of my external hard drives so that each restore point was between 1.5Gb and 7Gb.

Denise

 

Glad you made it through the storm ok. I am not familiar with SATA add on cards. But I would look for a PCI card and just try to run them USB. Seems easier to me. But again, I have no knowledge on this.

The windows restore points can eat up some drive space. Once you are sure all is well, you can delete the old ones, and just leave one or two. But don't do that just yet!:cool

E

 

Why don't you think I should delete some of them now? roflmao

I'm trying to find a SATA card/adapter because I have 4 USB 2.0, 4 Firewire and 4 SATA exernal hdds. If I can find a SATA card/adapter to fit my pc, I won't have to run so many HUBS and switching cords from one hdd to another at times. After a while, the wires are such a jumbled mess, I can't find the end of a cable or electrical cord so each cable and electrical cord has to be shared with other ext hdds. It sounds like my life in a nutshell! I can't wait to get them all connected and turned on and see what this baby does! It's gonna be awesome!

I learned so much here . . . more than putting parts together. I hope the old gray matter doesn't start leaking, but I've copied and pasted just about all the pages here to a Word doc. I never would have dared to do some of the things that I was advised to do here, and I never would have thought to connect the PSU plug to the 4-pin port . . . it's why I couldn't for the life of me think of what Walter was trying to tell me. This one I can take apart and put it together again in a couple of hours because I know every part of it down to the last screw and washer, but I wonder how I'd do if I was given a completely different set of parts to build another computer. That won't happen for at least 5 years, I hope.

Denise

 

Denise, you have learned a lot. I was thinking today while looking at another post that you could have helped this person (first time builder with similar pitfalls that you had). My whole interpretation of these forums is to "think." If anyone keeps information to themselves is an offense to me. It is the same kind of open source philosophy that Linux has. We help each other and that helps us all because we all win in the end. That is why to me forums are so important. You can meet someone from anywhere in the world to work on a project or common goal. For example, I have a friend in another forum who figured out the physical layout of an ATI card down to which resistors do what and can be modded to unlock extra pipes. It turned out that he made it possible for thousands of people to increase the performance of their card. If he didn't get help from others on the forum for his research, no mod for thousands of people. We work together to help. So maybe you could help someone in a similar situation to yourself one day. My friend said, "The solution could be genius and meanwhile very simple but the simple things are not always genius." I think he was right in saying that.

Good luck with the computer.

 

Are the plugs coming out of the drives USB? If they are you can just get a USB hub. I have not heard of a SATA external drive that needs an inboard SATA device. But I could be wrong. After re reading your post, it looks like you need more USB connections. That will depend on what the MOBO has.

And just my .02 here Denise. You can get a 320GB drive from Newegg or Geeks.com for a little under $100. If you start trying to power 12 usb drives, you may tax your PSU. Smaller drives are even less. You can put 2 or 3 regular IDE drives in that box or even put some SATA drives in there. Then sell the old drives on Fleaybay.

E

 

Well said Walter. I expect DeniseM to be answering some questions on the site in the near future.

E

 

What would I connect the external hdds to then? There aren't any external SATA ports. I want to somehow connect a 4-port SATA card/adapter to the internal SATA port. There are PATA ports for a firewire card and a USB 2.0 card, but no port for a SATA card. There are only 2 IDE ports, one for the USB 2.0 card and one for the firewire card. That's the set-up that I had with my old computer and I needed 3 HUBS to connect all the drives.

I have large ext hdds. My smallest is 250Gb, the largest is 500Gb. I'm waiting for the 750Gbs to come down in price so I can eliminate 2 250Gb drives and a 300Gb drive. I have over 3T in ext hdds. I had them all connected to my old pc and I was able to have 11 of them on at the same time for more than a day with no problems. The new PSU, CPU and other hardware and software should be able to handle them all because of the upgrade of the parts. I won't turn them all on at the same time, but one after the other as one boots up. I'll let you know how it goes.

The SATA ext hdds are 350Gb each. I bought a SATA internal hdd and a motherboard that has SATA ports so that I could connect my SATA ext hdds into SATA ports. I had them connected to my old pc with a USB 2.0 cable, but I needed 3 HUBS. If I can get a SATA card/adapter, I would need only 1 USB 2.0 HUB (I need 2 more ports for the monitor and printer connections). I'd love to get those enclosures that hold a number of hard drives but the prices of those cases are astronomical. Again, my birthday is coming up soon and if anyone would like to know my mailing address, just feel free to ask.

I'm also trying to figure out a way to keep the electrical wires and cables from getting so tangled up again. I was thinking of twisting the cable and the electrical cord around each other for each ext hdd and using twist ties to keep them together. They're not all the same size though and they have to go in different directions at some point, so I don't know how that will work out. It would be great if there was a gadget that would hold them the way a tape measure enclosure holds a metal tape measure. If you ever see anyone come out with one, remember . . . you heard it here first

Denise

 

Only if you're there to correct the wrong answer I might give. I learned a lot with building this pc but I don't think I know enough to give advice. And, as the saying goes, the more I learn, the more I see how much more I need to learn, and that applies to me very much. I would always be willing to help someone out if I know that I know the correct answer. It would be nice to stick around though . . . as I said earlier, I've gotten to like you all and I appreciate the invitation.

 

Sorry DeniseM, I thought you had a bunch of small drives. Dang, your drive space is bigger than mine! I am just a little shy of one TB. I am out on the drive stuff, not able to help you on that part. Hopefully someone will help you with it.

confused
E