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Typing to you guys from my spare $75 POS craptop computer...

I used to love XP...had this one for 11 years...yes...11 friggin' years without ANY problems.
I made this computer at night after work when I helped build the Detroit Metropolitan Air Terminal for Northwest Airlines 11 years ago...for fun... :96-
Now I can't even get past the last blinking cursor that's right after the line that says >>>

"Searching for Boot Record from IDE-0..OK"

Sooo.... O-K....it found a boot record on the main hard drive ( I previously changed the boot order because it kept trying to boot from LAN networked PXE-something I've never ever used... :277- !!)

So why isn't this computer getting to the black XP LOGO page anymore?  :276-



A little history...
The hard drive and motherboard was changed about 2 years ago.
I installed & set up the MSI K8M Neo-V 7032 motherboard up using plain old MB BIOS default settings and there in and a copy of WinXP Home Edition using windows own Firewall and updates...did nothing else.
Hard drive is a 250BG Western Digital IDE...I still have a SATA drive in original plastic
bag ...I knew nothing about RAID stuff and never had time to learn and throw in the upgrade - so I never hooked it up...

Anyways, I have a lot...and I mean a LOT of slot stuff on this puppy....
I gotta save it... :99-

Think I should double ZIP-Lock bag the hard drive in the freezer?

Below is a very, very short video clip I made from my den showing
you all it can do right now...from power up...to freeze frame  :8- >>>


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_dcT2j8Dlc (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_dcT2j8Dlc)

Stay do you have only one hard drive in that box? can you swap another to see if it is the drive, or even put it in another computer as a slave and move files, have you changed anything in the box recently, also check power supply maybe swap the power lead into the hard drive it looks as if it never get out of bios can you update your firmware?

Yep one 1 hard drive in a what is now a yellowed tower cabinet ...lol  WTF happened to the nice color it once had?!?!?  :97-
I was embarrassed carrying that thing around at work...looks like a late 1980's cell phone.  :5-
I forgot how freaking heavy they can be!!!

Tried a known good IDE 30GB hard drive....same results.
I'm going to see if this HD will act as a slave in another computer.
I'll have to change the jumper to slave I think (excuse me...It's been years )
stick a power cable and use the spare connector on the ribbon cable that I never used right?

Does your bios have a flash rest or something like that to reset the bios to new in case its corrupt, is the HD in question spinning up or doing nothing and yes you will have to change it to slave or auto select

The BIOs asked my to "hit any key" to flash it, so I did right?
 and the screen went bright red and pink
and jumbled and beautiful like 4th of July fireworks!

Then it went into this mode with the cursor blinking like that Eagles song...

Here's a picture of "My Dinosaur" on the floor getting ready
to hit the garbage can in the morning...I may give it a proper burial at sea...(uh, that's too far)
well, how about the nearest river... chained to cement blocks?   :72- >>>

I could also stand it out in the backyard and pump it fulla buckshot.... :208- 
My favorite for wide-spreading buckshot would be the left-most semi-auto pump...
pulling both triggers at the same moment utilizing the double-barreled shotgun knocks people right back onto their arse! :96->>>

did you reboot the box after the great colors

Nope...whatever it tried to do is exactly what the video clip is showing ya...
tomorrow, it might look like swiss cheese...lol

I also have another idea see attached beside water bottle, to bad you don't live closer Directions you put it in the box, pull back the pink paper and light the green fuse and run like you stole it!!!!!!

lol...those are easy to make ...!
I used to use army surplus store "pineapples".
Those were just a little bit dangerous though! lol
When you hear a high pitched wheezing whistling sound going slightly over your head as one goes off - you know that was just a little bit toooo close!
You've come to the stark realization why they were called "pineapples" !  :72-

the first time a friend of mine taped one to a 1 gallon milk jug full of GAS and lit it,.................. you could see it 5 miles away :97- :97- :97- :97- :97- :97-  I was told to never have 5 or more at the same time or bad things happen!

yeah...three of them kick the other two in directions you don't expect them to be.... :72-


Anyways, I've had this thing long enough and I'm really like my laptop more than ever.
Tower desktops are sooooo passe...!  :96-

Back then, it cost me like around a $1,000 bucks to build it...saved
a lot because they were like 3 - 4 thousand back then...now I can get
a half decent laptop for less than half of that price from 11 yrs ago!

I just gotta see if I can save the stuff from the Western Digital hard drive is all...

If you can put in a box that is networked in your house you can then move the files to your new computer if the old HD is good

That seems to be my only option...
I will try it tomorrow...it's getting late here on the east coast...
Thank you so much for your efforts!  :3-

Just playing the new game I got today Talk at you latter

If all you care about is the data I use one of these http://www.amazon.com/Kingwin-Adapter-Inches-Drive-Back-Up/dp/accessories/B0019HLE7Q to recover from drives.  I think I got mine for about $12 at micro center.  Hook the bare drive up and see what it does.   You can then tap on the drive and what not if needed but if both drives you tried act the same one of these will let you read the data off.

Bunker, I've been up for over 24 hours, so pardon me if I ramble or miss something...

Based on your video, your computer has a CDROM drive and the BIOS is already set to try to boot from it first (so you don't even need to change the boot order). If you have a CD version of WinBlows, then put it in the drive and boot from the CD, then see if you can read the drive at all.

If you don't have a way to boot from the CD drive, then you can either take the drive out and hook it up to any working computer or put another bootable HDD into your tower. Again, from the video I see that the slave position on the first cable is still free. You would change the bad drive to slave and put the good bootable drive on the cable as master, then boot from the good drive and try to access the bad drive. Your machine has an IDE drive and controller, so the "good" drive would also have to be an IDE (not a SATA).

If you only have a laptop and need to use USB, then do as hotrodslots69 suggests and get am IDE to USB converter so you can plug the drive into the laptop's USB port.


If you can't access the data once you have a way to attach the drive to a working computer, try putting the drive in the freezer for 15 or 20 minutes, remove it, and then immediately try to access the drive again. Try not to let any moisture condense on the drive when you remove it from the freezer (that could be difficult to manage.) If you can get to your data, start copying it off as fast as you can. You might have to repeat the cooling process more than once to get all the data.

If that doesn't work you could try to use a recovery program. I can't recommend one but I"m sure that some of our other members can.

One more idea would be to try another board on the drive (just in case the one on the drive is bad.) That would entail getting another IDENTICAL drive (the exact same brand and model) and swapping the PCBs.

Hope one of these ideas works for you.


Stat :31-



P.S. You could try cooling off the drive as a first step and then attempt to boot from it. See, I told you I was punchy. :5- :96-

I agree that the easiest thing to do is just buy a cheap IDE hard drive enclosure and see if you have access with another computer/laptop. Be sure it is a self powered unit though as the USB port won't be able to power older full size hard drives. If you happen to have an external USB DVD writer laying around, you can use that too. Just swap the DVD unit for the drive.

okay, I have the hard drive hooked up to the "zero" side of the IDE cable
( The "1" connector of the IDE cable is usually a spare slave connector).
The hard is jumped as "Master" and going into the motherboard.
I can get to the XP logo screen with the blue cursor going across,
 then I get a black screen and nothing else...see video clip below>>>

I'm going to move this drive to the "1" connector on the IDE cable
( I will have to move it's jumper to "slave" position)
and install a known good drive as a new master
and see what happens...>>>

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdMyzyZWX2w (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdMyzyZWX2w)

Try putting the jumper on your hard drive to the CS
position. CS for cable select.

okay...
Realized I have no idea which hard drive belongs in this sucker now.... :5-
I switched the HD jumper to the "CS" position.
It doesn't matter anyways...both hard drives - when on the CS position, produce the same results.

It just keeps rebooting.... :7- :277->>>

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkXQYGAucjE (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkXQYGAucjE)

If you move a XP drive around it knows it original computer and it will cause you problems with windows asking for your re authenticate it, but it sounds like your mother board is having problems not your HD, because you would not have the same problem on 2 different drives if it were the HD, it could be your memory or your main chio set over heating does it have a fan and does it work and is it moving air

I should have watched the video first.
The hard drive is being accessed so the master-slave configuration is OK.
The rebooting is a software problem.
I would reset all connectors and ram
and then run a drive repair program on the hard drive.

According to my MSI MS-7032 motherboard manual >>>
removing the battery jumper on the motherboard, with
the power off - resets the MB.
Exactly WHAT that procedure resets - I don't know...
I will try that again...

Any recommendations on a decent drive repair program on the internet?  :129-

My $02

The machine is starting to boot into XP. If it was a 'computer hardware' problem, it would not be geting that far. A XP reboot cycle is 99.999% software related. A corrupt driver or something.

Try XP's safe mode. Hold the F8 key while the machine is booting (after the BIOS screen) then you can first try 'Last known good configuration'. If that doesn't work, just uses Safe mode, no networks support'. Let us know what it does.

okay Poppo,
I got into the BIOs and set the 1st Boot Device as the IDE-0 .
This will be trying to boot from the hard drive...
Powered up, pressed F8 to get into "Safe Mode".

See pic of BIOS setting in the Boot Sequence & video clip below>>>

Give it a minute--still uploading to youtube


Okay>>>


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E60qR24NLMk (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E60qR24NLMk)

Pesss and hold F8 after the BIOS screen and BEFORE the Windows logo pops up. If the logo pops up, you waited too long. You should get a menu for safe mode.

okay...I did...
Two pics below..the options screen after pressing [F8]
and the screen after I chose LKGoodConfig...>>>

'Start normally' probably won't work. Try the very top one.

Last Known Good Config screen...
I hit enter and still get into the XP logo screen and it reboots over and over...

In case you missed my last post. Try the first option 'Safe mode'. The 'last know good' option was just a shot in the dark. I've never had it actually work.  Safe mode may take a while to boot.

I tried every one of those options...still reboots over and over.


I think I'm going to pull out this hard drive and save it aside and see if I can get all the NLG slot machine data out of it.
You would NOT believe how much slot docs are on it...
I HAVE to try and save it...screw this motherboard... :107- :7- :276-


Okay, I'm trying "Safe Mode" again for like the 50th time...lol

Here's a video clip of the Safe Mode attempt...>>>

need a few minutes to upload to youtube

BTW It won't be safe from my 8 Lb. sledgehammer out in the garage... :208-

Safe Mode attempt>>>


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sihw87HSq_Y (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sihw87HSq_Y)

Well, it was worth a try. Safe mode boots with a mimumum number of drivers. It looks like it may be getting hung up on your video driver (or it may be on the next one that has not displayed yet).

You could boot to 'command prompt', but that starts getting cryptic and you need to know what file to replace.

So I think we are back to just putting the drive in a USB enclosure and getting your data off of it on another machine.

Or if you have a XP install CD, you can try doing  a 'repair' by booting off of the CD.

I totally agree with you as the post stops scrolling down beyond the line at the "AGP" line -
which I'm sure is the driver for the onboard video chip or next driver like you said...



But with a different hard drive plugged in the the motherboard right?
To save the important hard drive on the side for now?

I will install the SATA hard drive I've never used and install with XP.
I don't have any other IDE hard drives on hand...

No, with this one. If you just do a 'repair', it will only replace all of the windows files. It won't mess with your data.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307654 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307654)

okay...thanks for the link Poppo!!  :131- :3-
I gotta go look for my known good copy of XP... :209-
I will report back in a bit.  :89-

why cant you just do a factory reinstall by hitting f11? it might work.... only down side is you loose all your personal data on there......that happened to me a while back xp kept rebooting i had to change my hard drive.......

What sort of 'factory install'? Some computers that have that option (XP install on a hidden partition) will wipe out everything and it will be like when you first bought it. Fine if you want to start from scratch, not good if you have data you need (as in this case).

lol  staz - you would would NOT want to lose the stuff on THIS hard drive...believe me.  

I know how to install XP just fine, but I've never done the Recovery Console...
I know it's obvious I should hiy the "R" key.... :72-
Look at the new screen I got!
Here we go...>>>

That looks right.

that should work.......... why didnt you ever back up everything on cd's?

Going all the way back to my last post, I never said that the master/slave configuration had anything to do with the problem or that it needed changing. I was suggesting a way to put another bootable drive into the computer as one option of getting an operating system loaded so that the suspect drive could be assessed and tested.

<EDIT> I deleted the rest of my post after watching the last video. If it consistently stops at exactly the same driver each time then a repair might fix the problem.

Slightly off topic, but I am still using my 8 year old Toshiba Tecra M1 laptop. What I like about this laptop is that the DVD is removable and you can either put in a an extra battery OR a second hard drive. With the second hard drive it makes it super easy to use Ghost (from a boot floppy) to make an exact close of the drive. I have 2 'backup' drives that I alternate doing clones to. I do this once a week. Daily, I just do a simple file copy of stuff that changes on on daily basis to my main server. So in the case of a hard drive failure, (I have had a few), I just pop in the most recent clone and I'm already 99% of the way back to normal. then I copy back my daily files and all I may have lost is what I did between the daily backup and the crash. The whole 'restore' process takes about 5 minutes.

 :210-
I really want a new laptop, but I hat to give up this functionality. Plus I absolutely HATE Widows 7. I have it on my server since that is what it came with, and I want to  :276- every time I need to do anything. What used to be consistent since win 98 is now buried in some 'wizard' or elsewhere hidden.

I agree that that is probaby the easiest thing. However I have also had a single corupt file cause the reboot thing. And his safe mode boot is showing it rebooting up on the same driver each time.

I have so many programs installed and custimizations that I personally would always try to do a repair first. Starting from scratch really sucks.

I agree, which is why I already removed the rest of my post after watching that video.

I also agree with doing full system backups (not just data). I don't use ghost (it's a great program, though). Believe it or not, I use plain old Windows backup and back up the drive to another one (usually larger so I can keep multiple sets of full and incremental backups.) I'm anal enough to then copy the backups to yet a third drive, just in case.

And like you, I've had drives fail and been able to be back up and running in less than an hour by reinstalling Windows and then restoring the entire drive - system state, programs, and all - from my backup. In addition, I keep almost all of my data on a physically separate drive in the first place, and not on the system drive.

<ADD> and obviously, I also back up the data drive. :96-  Now that drives have gotten so large, my next incarnation will almost certainly be a RAID 5 box.

The advantage of Ghost or other cloning solutions (I have a hardware based cloner too) is not having to reinstall Windows. Just pop in the drive and you are good to go. But I'm sure backup software has gotten better over the years.

I even have a 'backup' laptop.  :5- Exact same model (got it on e-bay for next to nothing). So the whole laptop can go up in smoke and I can still be up and running in no time.  :91-

WinBlows backup really hasn't changed much (I'm still in XP and have no idea about Vista or 7). It still won't recognize CD/DVD drives (only wants to use f#$%n floppy drives) but then, it was really never really intended for those types of backups (floppy) anyway.

It does backup to a single medium (which used to be tape drives) so it's fine when the target is another hard drive. I stopped using CDs and DVDs years ago, since I currently have nearly a terabyte of data to back up. I don't even want to start thinking about how many DVDs that would be. :81- :58- :52-

Another problem with the DVD solution is that even if one only has to use say, 20 DVDs, it's a labor intensive backup that requires attendance (I usually backup my stuff while I'm sleeping) and because of this, most people won't do it at all.

Most people I know who haven't worked in the computer field don't have a comprehensive backup solution. Once bitten, twice shy fixes that, although too late for most.

My favorite excuse is when I hear the home amateurs say that they've backed up their data only and can "just reinstall the software from the disks" if their machine crashes. :25- :30- All I can say to those types is, "Raza Ruk" unless they don't ever expect to get things back to the way they were and want to spend days (literally) trying to get everything reinstalled and updated from the net – and that's assuming that they can lay their hands on all of the original DVDs/CDs. The only types that might be okay with this solution are the ones that have almost no software installed and never change any of the Windows settings.

Whats a Floppy Drive ?????? :208- :208- :208- :208- :208- :208- :208- :208- :208- :208- :208- :208- :208- :208-

Wow!

My computer works great!  :89-

The mouse cursor moves faster than I think I've ever seen it move around the screen!

I still have a 3.5" sloppy drive on my tower., not that I use it much. And I still have some old software that came on those sloppies.  :72- :72- :72-

I've got at least one 5.25" sloppy drive in my garage. What's more interesting is that I still have an old 8" floppy disc with a copy of FORTH (and some code) on it from college.

So the repair fix the bad file?

Given that your original video showed the computer failing to even get to the windows boot sequence, I'd still find a third party disc checking program and rigorously check the drive for signs of failure or other problems.

The mouse movement can be set as you wish. The location of the settings depends on your mouse software (I use a Logitech with its own setup), but start in the control panel with WinBlows default mouse settings.

College memories of vax vms pascal fortran, and many other things I have forgot, and BEER! :185-

My laptop uses a USB floppy and the ONLY thing I use it for is to boot the Ghost disk. For a true clone, the main drive cannot be in use, hence needing to boot off of a floppy. Unfortunately my laptop does not support booting off of a USB data drive or I would be using that.

I still have a 5.25" sloppy (sic) drive that I use for animations on my Mikohn.

***Update***

Good news= My computer works great now!
Bad news= I lost everything... :8-
Half-Good News= It's a good thing I backed up everything about 4 months ago.
Half-Bad News= I only lost everything from the last four months...I can live with that.

What went wrong= In desperation, I had totally forgotten which hard drive I was trying to save.
I went into the Recovery Console and typed in "fixboot" ( which it did remarkably well...!  :5- )
Then I went and fully installed XP onto it hoping to get to the page where it says that "if you continue, Winblows will format over the entire drive letter" or something like that?
Well, I never saw the page as I accidentally hit the enter button twice or something
and the XP erased everything and started installing XP in full !!! Arghh!

I shut down the machine by pulling out the plug from the machine then tried to remove the copy of XP hoping to kill the installation - alas, it must of been already too late
and the hard drive must of been reformatted... :8- :37-

What did I learn?= Nothing, I did this 2 or 3 years ago and that's why I bought a new hard drive at that time...good thing I had backed up all of my documents and pictures to a DVD at that time.  :97-

 :133-  Although I've never been a big fan of beer, especially standard "vanilla" American beer. :72- :72-

Actually, the FORTH disc wasn't from a programming class, it was from an electronic music class. We had a computer running FORTH hooked up to analog synthesizer modules using a DAC card. Learning to program in FORTH and to then program music in FORTH was an incidental part of the class, not it's focus. :30-

Oddly enough, I learned all of my programming skills on my own, not in school (except for the high school computer club). Can you say "geek"?  :97- :97-


Okay, check out this page. Someone actually created a Venn diagram of the difference between nerds, dorks, and geeks. :208- :208- :208-
Now THAT's  just over the top.  :30- :30-

Difference between nerd, dork, and geek explained in a venn diagram (http://www.greatwhitesnark.com/2010/03/25/difference-between-nerd-dork-and-geek-explained-in-a-venn-diagram/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+greatwhitesnark%2Fyqzr+%28Great+White+Snark%29)

Assuming the machine is working, you do know you can adjust the mouse speed in the control panel.  :89-

And at a minumum, run the built in check disk. It will run when you reboot if you are running it on the boot drive.

When's the last time you've seen YOUR desktop this clean?  :208- :97- :72-

Looks crowded to me. :5- You should put the link to FF in the quick launch menu. :200- :208- :208- :208-

 :72- FU Stat! ( just kidding of course! I'm laughing at myself really)

Wanna hear something funny that happened today?

You'll bust out laughing...gimme a few minutes to type it out...

Hopefully that will change now. Don't forget that you'll not only have to reinstall all of the programs you want to use, you'll also have to reconfigure them. :79-

Once you've got the machine running the way you want (programs installed and updated and all customizations done), back up the entire machine, not just your data. THEN, run a backup at least once a month (once a week would be even better, and I won't even try to suggest once a day.) Remember, once you have a full backup you can run incrementals or differentials each day week which should take only a few minutes. Then run a new full backup every - er, well, whatever... :30-

 :200- :200- :200-  :257- :257- :296- :296-  :208- :208- :208-

But even if it did reinstall Windows, your data should still be there. The only way it would be gone is if you actually told it to re-format the drive and you have to do several extra steps for that. So the program links and such may be gone, but the actual data should still be there. So you may have to reinstall the programs but any files like docs etc. should still be there.

Don't forget to run Microsoft Update.  I'm sure you will find a lot of critical updates that will need to be done on your fresh install.

Oh yeah...there'll be about 90 updates to install...my computer will be on all night trying to accomplish that....
Anyways, here's what happened>>>


I was running around the house looking for my copy of XP right?
Like for about 2 hours!!!
It's amazing what you find when you're not trying to find it!  :96-
I found my old high schools photographs, long thought-missing car keys, a can of electronics cleaner spray, music CD's that I'm definitely gonna install in my car's CD player in the morning, $47.78 bucks in stashed money stuck in a set of Double Diamond strip (lol), and one small bottle of Jack Daniels that I was going to give as a gift one year to my brother... :91-

I had gotten my hands dirty from moving boxes around in the garage so I went into the house and started to wash them right?
I did but I was thirsty, so I turned on the button for the water filter and bent down to take a drink straight from the faucet as I was too lazy to run all the way into the kitchen just for a bloody cup.

I saw that the water wasn't coming out as fast as it usually does so I figured "Ah...maybe it's just a little clogged up, I'll just take the top off and rinse it"

So, I take the cover off of the Moen water filter, inspect it and pulled on the faucet handle to get the water going so I can rinse it...well....the water pressure is very strong here as I have an artesian well...

It shot straight out off the filter's top hole right into my face like a jet nozzle.
I flew back and reached for the handle and turned it off and stood there looking at myself and everything in the bathroom...I mean EVERYTHING, the ceiling, the mirror lights, the counter, my shirt.......dripping, soaking wet!

I laughed at myself for a good 3 minutes, tears coming out of my eyes laughing my head off!!!

What really blows with a fresh install (especially on a laptop) is if you don't have a driver for the network card. And of course you can't download it if you have no network connection.  :25-

I
I have the original MSI motherboard set up disk in the box still.
It has the LAN drivers on the CD.
I've already run it and got online and that's how I'm talking to you here!

I'm not so sure. It's been a long time since I've done a Windows install, but if you don't reformat the active partition then it installs another copy of windows next to the old copy (with new folder names) which is kind of kludgy. In that case the data would be in the old version of his "My Documents". That is not the default installation option, however.

Bunker, I hope I'm wrong but I don't think your data was saved.

Whether it overwrites the old Windows directory or creates a new one, as long as the drive was not actually formatted, the data should still be there. For example, I have a folder called 'slots' which have all of my slot related files and pictures etc. That folder should still be there.

And I thought you had to press some special keys to do a format (to prevent an oops).

It never overwrites them during a new install. That's my point. A standard fresh installation involves a format. If you think about it, how else could MS (or the end user trying to get rid of viruses or other bad files in the operating system directories or registry enteries) know for certain that no residual versions of .dlls or any other files were still in place?

The REPAIR option (from the Windows setup menu, not from the recovery console) overwrites the original Windows directory and files without affecting data or settings, but it's not a complete installation. (When the choice is offered during the installation, the user presses 'R'.)

I'm not saying that a format is not an option. Pressing the R 'repair' option (which is what I thought Bunker said he pressed) by default just does an over-write.


http://pcsupport.about.com/od/operatingsystems/f/reinstxpformat.htm (http://pcsupport.about.com/od/operatingsystems/f/reinstxpformat.htm)

I think he was going to do that before he messed up. :127-  All I'm saying is that the repair "installation" isn't really an installation. I can't tell you how many times I tried using it to fix a windows operating system problem (not viruses or anything like that) only to have it fail because it didn't really overwrite all of the original options in the registry or in the windows OS folders.

In one case I was only missing some files that were accidentally deleted and it didn't even replace them (not drivers, but system files.) even though I knew that the needed files were in the .cab files on the windows disk used for the repair "installation" and were part of a true installation. Unfortunately, the repair console command to recopy the system files didn't get them all, either.

<EDIT> By the definitions given on the website you posted, a "clean" install would be a full installation.