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HD Trouble!

A

atari2600a

Veteran Member
Joined
May 26, 2006
Messages
1,267
Location
Schwarzeneggerville, CA
On my PIII machine, With my Hard Disk's jumper is set to "Master/Single Drive", my BIOS gives me an "Error Loading Operating System" error message.

When I set the jumper to "Enable Cable Select", It gives me a "Master Drive Detection Error" (or something like that) & then goes "Press F1 to Continue" & then boots into my OS. Whenever I soft-reset the computer, I get an "Error Loading Operating System" error.

I've never gotten the whole "Cable Select" thing, but whenever I plug my HD into any other connector on the same/another cable, The BIOS doesn't even detect it!

Can someone help me out? (Remember, my computer works fine, I just have to push F1 whenever I turn it on, & I can't do a soft-reset.)
 
Akin to HD trouble, I just realized something (a virus? an installer?) has deleted all the loose files I have on my E:\ partition. It has not removed any of the directories, nor has it deleted anything from C:\ or D:\ as far as I can see. It is a bit annoying, as I had a number of noisy WAV recordings (from vinyl) located directly under E:\ plus a couple of other random files, but nothing really invaluable as far as I remember.

Whatever it was, it has not deleted hidden/protected files (maybe it wasn't able to) and it was also unable to delete files starting with a dot (like .profile or .newsrc coming from Unix/Emacs use).
 
Great news, my BIOS is giving me the "Error loading Operating System" message again! this arose after I put some $10 thermal grease on my CPU (Which cooled it down by about 70F by the way). I tried shorting the CMOS jumper TWICE & tried various settings, & even scanned the boot sector w/ my Win2000 disk! Anyone know what the funk's going on w/ my PC?

Someone please help me!

By the way, since Alexkerhead offered to send me a free 1GHz Celeron (or a 800MHz PIII) (Thanks by the way! You shall get a link on my links.html page (If you have a website) or something! I can't thank you enough!), & seing that my CPU tempurature averages at around 115-120F now, I'm going to overclock it a little. Since I'm too lazy to change a jumper that's under my PSU, my multiplier's set to 4 w/ my current CPU, & at the highest bus speed, it goes to six-hundred-something MHz, but I doubt It'll go that high w/o overheating &/or crashing.
 
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That celeron won't overclock much, and will likely cause some instability with a small o/c.
It sounds like a corrupted master boot on your drive, you may want to back up and reload everything after a good repartitioning and dos format, not xp quick format. Note, this is not the only way, but the best way.
I've also had those issues with bad ram modules, so try a different module first.
 
No, I said I'm gonna overclock my PIII, not the Celoron! :D

I didn't do a quick format when I installed 2000 2 weeks ago, I did the slow NTFS format (took about 20 minutes!)

What I did yesterday was I went into the 2000 Installation auto-recovery-thing, & scanned the boot sector w/ it. The boot sector's fine.

You know, I DID move my 256MB of RAM from DIMM1 to DIMM4, as the MB manual insisted. Would this have anything to do w/ it?
 
Yes, but I still don't see how htis could happen, I mean, the RAM has been in DIMM2 for 5 years with no problems, DIMM1 for a week, still no problems, & now it's in DIMM4, just as the manual says to, & it won't load the OS? How could this be?
 
===Update===

Today, my dad came home & suprised me w/ a new case & PSU!!! I took everything out of my old ugly case, reassembled it & everything, but there's one problem: It won't power up w/ the HD plugged in!!! Anyone know WTF's going on!?
 
Make sure it's all plugged in properly. Shorts (from improperly connected items or bad items) can stop a system from booting.

You could also be running out of juice to power up with the extra draw of the HD, but I doubt it. . .
 
I've come across this before at work. People get cheapo 300 Watt PSU's and expect it to have enough umph to boot a P4 rig. Sorry, ain't gonna happen. During the initial boot process, the mobo, HD and other stuff puts quite a large load on the PSU, your probably just drawing too much power from it. I usually aim for a 450 Watt or higher. An high end PSU's are always good. Like I use an Antec......

-VK
 
They are more than likely at PSUs, which wont work with atx.
It is likely the bad psu of his cooked his mainboard...
You can boot a P3 on a 130watt, just so you know.
 
Everything on my PC works just fine (side the HD), I've booted Knoppix (a Live-CD distro of Linux) countless times! Nothing burnt out!

It's a 450W ATX PSU.

I absolutely KNOW the problem is the HD, I just don't know what's wrong w/ the HD itself!:D
 
atari2600a said:
Everything on my PC works just fine (side the HD), I've booted Knoppix (a Live-CD distro of Linux) countless times! Nothing burnt out!

It's a 450W ATX PSU.

I absolutely KNOW the problem is the HD, I just don't know what's wrong w/ the HD itself!:D
Click to expand...
if you have to know, one of the goodies is a HD.
 
worf_st9_800.jpg

Qapla!!!!!!
Holy freaking crap!!!!!:D :D :D How big is it!? Do you think it will survive the mail trip?
 
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