andylancaster3000
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| posted on 2/10/09 at 08:25 AM |
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Computer won't boot
Hi all,
Just wondering whether there is any expertise on the the matter on here.
The problem:
When I restarted my PC last night it hung at boot stage then took me into the screen asking which mode of safe-mode or otherwise you wanted to boot
in. Selected safe-mode and it just went round and did the same thing again without ever booting.
Tried all sorts of things including finally inserting the install CD (which I believe acts as a recovery CD as well?). Again it didn't actually
boot-up just went straight back round to the safe-mode selection screen.
Has anyone got any ideas of whats going on? A friend suspects HDD failure which I could believe but am a little sceptical as it's not that old
and had worked seconds beforehand with no issues at all.
Machine is about 7 months old and running on Vista 64bit business.
Any help or thoughts greatly appreciated!
Andy
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jossey
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 posted on 2/10/09 at 08:31 AM |
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PC ISSUES.
you will need to edit your bios to boot from cd then you can use windows repair.
you can do this by using one of the 2 options when you turn pc on keep pressing DEL button till it goes into bios (blue screened menu) or using f3 is
the other normal option. when you get to this option just go to boot options and set cdrom and option 1 then hdd as option 2 then insert cd and save
and exit. when you restart it will ask if you want to boot from cd. do that then run windows repair. not likely to be hard drive more likley to be an
issue with software.
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andylancaster3000
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| posted on 2/10/09 at 08:41 AM |
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Thaks for the quick response!
Thats exacly what I did, the first boot option has always been cd-rom, yet it still seems to jump to the safe-mode options screen even after accepting
to boot from the CD
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mookaloid
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| posted on 2/10/09 at 08:46 AM |
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quote:
Originally posted by andylancaster3000
Has anyone got any ideas of whats going on? A friend suspects HDD failure which I could believe but am a little sceptical as it's not that old
and had worked seconds beforehand with no issues at all.
yep that's how they fail - no warning at all working one second, not the next. Everything then either freezes up or blue screens and it
won't reboot properly etc.
Your friend may be correct 
"That thing you're thinking - it wont be that."
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jossey
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| posted on 2/10/09 at 09:00 AM |
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is the hard drive showing in the bios?
when you load the bios up it should show the hard drive and cd rom/dvd rom's
its a difficult one if you cant get the boot from cd option up. sometimes you have to remove the hdd from the boot sequence. see if that works. if you
have another pc which i guess you have cos we online talking then you can download a dos harddrive checker like maxdiags
it dont sound like the hard drive with it tryint to load into windows. see if you can get it to boot from cd. good luck
email me at davidj@sec-1.com if you need anything else
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andylancaster3000
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| posted on 2/10/09 at 11:01 AM |
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Yup! Fortunatley I have an old laptop so am not totally stuck!
I tried removing the HD from the boot sequence last night, again to no avail. When I do try an boot from the CD I get this message show: 1. No
Emulation System Type- 00 What does this suggest?
Where will the HD details show in the bios exactly?
Cheers
Andy
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BenTyreman
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| posted on 2/10/09 at 11:57 AM |
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How the hard drive appears in the BIOS varies from maker to maker, and from version to version. It will usually have an entry in the first page that
looks something like "Primary Master: Hard Drive" for PATA or "ATA-0: Hard Drive" for SATA.
Disconnect the power and data cable from the hard drive. This will remove the possibility of a faulty hard drive messing with the system. Then try
booting off the Windows installation CD.
The installation should progress to the point where it brings up an error saying that there are no hard drives installed.
If it still doesn't boot off the CD with the hard drive disconnected, you want to be looking at something like RAM unseated or motherboard
failure. Try taking out the RAM and putting it back in (it's best to handle the RAM by the sides, not by grabbing the chips or the contacts at
the bottom).
If it does boot off the CD, it might still not be the hard drive. If the power supply is failing, or is a bit marginal, then the extra power draw of
trying to read the CD drive can be enough to cause a reset.
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andylancaster3000
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| posted on 2/10/09 at 01:13 PM |
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Well, tried the idea of unplugging the HD and it'll now go through to the CD instal screen. So most likely idea now is the HD has failed!
Damn...
I don't suspect that it's the power supply really. Again, it's fairly new and of reasonable quality and power.
[Edited on 2/10/09 by andylancaster3000]
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jossey
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| posted on 2/10/09 at 01:33 PM |
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hard drive
still not convinced it will be the hard drive. i work as an it technician in leeds. try put hardrive in other pc and run maxdiags or something like
that.
good luck.
its unusual for new hdd's to be faulty and force boot the pc. more likely something else like power supply, ram, or even bios issue.
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andylancaster3000
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| posted on 2/10/09 at 02:12 PM |
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Ok, thanks jossey, will have a go at putting it in a friends computer.
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Ivan
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| posted on 2/10/09 at 03:10 PM |
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Maybe this is your problem
http://www.locostbuilders.co.uk/viewthread.php?tid=122224
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dhutch
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| posted on 4/10/09 at 06:05 PM |
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We had andys hdd in my computer just now as a secondary drive and the computer booted fine (on my primary drive) with andys coming up in the bios and
the showing up both of the partitions on it in my computer.
One of the them, the secondary partition (data etc) showed a disk with a red question mark over it briefly. But this then turned into a normal hdd
icon and both the os and data partitions appeared to work fine when random files where checked around the disk.
Not done a full drive scan yet and will do shortly and see how that goes. However it does at least prove the drive isnt totally dead and doesnt
prevent my computer booting.
I'll back his data up elsewhere and do a fully surface scan on it as soon as i get chance. But i think there's a decent chance it may be
ok. How possable is it that the sata on his motherboard has died? next step to try a known good hdd in his machine maybe.
Daniel
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