Help! Computer problem.

[grasswire]

Appliance repairman was just here to fix the oven. He accidentally threw the breaker switch to my computer, killing the power.

Now when I turn on the puter, I get a black screen with white cursor in upper left corner, and Windows does not load. The aptiva screen goes to the black screen white cursor.

I recall this happening once before and an IBM tech telling me to use one of the F keys to restore everything.

Does anyone know how to get out of this?

(I'm on my daughter's computer, incidentally.)

[Maine-i-acs]

1. give us the OS -

Repair-restore options vary between Win98, 2000, XP, etc.

In any event get your original CD for the OS ready.

[grasswire]

4. XP professional

No, I don't think I need to do anything but hit the right button. That's what happened to me before. I don't think it's major. I just can't remember what the tech told me.

What button do you hit to get to safe mode?

And yes, I have a surge protector.

[ArkDem]

6. F8

.

[Enraged_Ape]

2. Can you boot from the floppy?

That is, if you have a boot disk for the floppy.

It sounds like you're not able to load Windows from the hard drive.

[grasswire]

5. yes, I think that's it

Windows isn't loading.

[Maine-i-acs]

3. Either a toasted motherboard, fried RAM chip, or HD damage.

Depending on exactly what happens during the boot attempt, these are my 1st 3 choices.

Got a surge protector by any chance? Or a cheap UPS?

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

7. One of the three... Boot sector may have been corrupted AND

Another thing to try is resetting the bios.

[grasswire]

8. how do I reset the bios?

thanks for any suggestions

[grasswire]

9. any more thoughts?

F8 didn't work

[Enraged_Ape]

14. Sometimes the DELETE key takes you into BIOS

Try that. I think F10 has also worked in the past. Every system is different. One thing I've tried in the past is even hitting every function key while the computer is going through the power-on self test, until it finally kicks over to the BIOS.

If you can get into the BIOS, make sure your hard drive shows up as a recognized fixed disk. It's a good sign if it does, but it means you'll probably have to reinstall your operating system, at the least.

This sort of thing has happened to me before, as the result of a hosed hard drive. What I had to do was boot from a floppy, then reinstall Windows on a new hard drive. You might get away with just reinstalling Windows, but you're going to have to be able to reboot your machine before you do anything.

BTW, there is a website called bootdisk.com that has boot floppies for just about every system there is, if you don't have a disk of your own. But I've never used any of their stuff and I can't vouch for any of it. I only mention it as a last-ditch FYI.

[grasswire]

19. I tried the delete key earlier

..and I tried hitting every function key.

I suppose it's possible to reformat the hard drive, but that means losing all files.

[Enraged_Ape]

23. Don't panic yet

Here's a link to the website which posts a LOT of BIOS routines:

http://infoprosjoint.net/ij5/showthread.php?s=&threadid=4336

My advice would be to get ahold of that boot disk ASAP. You won't be able to get a C: prompt or really do a whole lot of anything else until you can load some sort of operating system, which is what boot-up is all about.

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

21. Open the box, there is a jumper on the mb, usually red and

usually should have some sort of indication printed beside it (VERY small). There will be three pins. Move the jumper to short out the 1-2 pins for a 5 seconds then move it back to its original position.

POWER DOWN & UNPLUG b4 you do this. Feel free to pm me if you need further info.

[grasswire]

27. this sounds scary

My nephew will be here tomorrow -- if we have to use this option I'll let him do it 'cause he has some CS classes under his belt.

Thanks very much for the reply.

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

29. I doubt that you will have to do it...

I read below that you could get the bios screen up. Enraged Ape is giving you good info.

[grasswire]

30. ah

so that is the bios screen. Thanks.

[Booberdawg]

10. Did you try rebooting with the floppy already?

[grasswire]

11. nope

can't do that till tomorrow. My nephew has the floppy at his apartment.

Will rebooting with the floppy mean that I lose files? Or not?

(Sorry to be such a luddite.)

[grasswire]

12. is there a way to get to a dos prompt?

I wonder.

[Booberdawg]

18. Try typing

CD C:\

After that I remember a few DOS commands and probably wouldn't know what to do with them anyway

[Booberdawg]

15. No, it won't make you lose anything

The OS looks for an alternate place to boot if it can't boot from the hard drive.

Once you get booted you can get in Safe Mode if necessary and get fixed up.:D

[Enraged_Ape]

16. Rebooting with a floppy will not cause you to lose files

But it will help you to actually get onto your machine so that you can fix whatever the problem is.

[Booberdawg]

13. Otherwise, you said you had a surge protector

but to be honest, it doesn't sound too good - like something got fried.

But if you say this has happened before, call tech support and have them walk you through it again. (Why am I thinking alt+F1)??

[grasswire]

17. thanks

I got lucky with tech support last time. The guy said it was out of warranty and he couldn't help me, but then he did just offer that suggestion.

[grasswire]

20. I wonder if this is possible

Download the boot file from the site noted above, on my daughter's computer, to a floppy. Then use that floppy. I wonder if a diskette would be big enough, though.

[grasswire]

22. alt F1 popped up a menu

called main menu

The choices are system information, disk drives, video input, etc. I don't know if anything there is helpful.

[Enraged_Ape]

24. Does Disk Drives show a hard drive installed?

n/t

[grasswire]

25. it shows.....

...the A drive and a drive called LS-120.

[Enraged_Ape]

26. Does this machine have two floppy drives?

I.E., do you see two slots in which floppies may fit?

To my knowledge, an LS-120 is like a floppy drive that stores 120 MB on a floppy-type disk.

[grasswire]

28. nope

CD rom, A, and that's it.

[KTM]

31. I've seen this before...

Your PC is not seeing the HD.. which, unfortunately MAY mean the HD has been corrupted. However, I did go on a call once with very similar circumstances, and we got past it...

Open the computer's case. Find the HD, which will be connected to a gray IDE cable coming from the MoBo. unplug this IDE Cable from the HD, and remove the power plug from the HD as well. (Everything else that is connected to the IDE cable that ISNT the HD would be a CD drive, etc, and would have one end sticking out the front of the PC.. the HD will not.)

Turn on the system, let it go until it craps out (OS not found, or some such error), then power it back off.

Go back into the PC, plug the power cord back into the HD. Plug the IDE cable back into the HD - be sure to align it correctly - the red stripe on it should be such that it is on the side closest to the power plug (this is VERY important !)

Turn the PC back on.

This is by no means a sure fire thing... but I've had it work in the past, which honestly I can't explain... I've been doing this for years, and had already told the customer I thought the HD was fried... but sure enough, that did the trick. (I had unplugged it just to look at it's serial info, and it revived once we plugged it back in.)

Give it a whirl - it certainly cant hurt.

If the HD was truly fried, I would expect either a "Cannot find Kernel32" or "OS not found" type error, or even for Windows to boot partially and crash...

Keep us posted - I'll check back in in a few.

[grasswire]

32. thanks for the tip

I'm really afraid to get into the hardware. I'll try this tomorrow when my savvier nephew is on hand. Thanks a lot -- I really appreciate your input.

[grasswire]

33. one other question

At the bottom of the bios page it says: F5 load default settings.

What will happen if I select that?

[KTM]

34. Nothing, probably

The vast majority of PCs are set to default settings anyway... but don't do it.. someone may have customized those settings at some point for you, and it is unlikely to fix anything.

We dont want to dig a deeper hole...

[grasswire]

35. spontaneously resolved -- how can that be?

So this morning I thought I'd boot the computer up one last time before surrendering it to repair.

It booted up, and is running fine.

So how the hell did that happen? NOTHING would bring up windows yesterday. It sat all night untouched with the bios screen displayed. Today it works.

[sexybomber]

36. Magic, perhaps?

Computers are known to do things for no reason whatsoever sometimes. Glad it fixed itself though!