Computer died how to restore?

poliss · December 22, 2011, 01:33:07 PM

Yep, it allowed that, but not the F: drive.

Chinahand · December 22, 2011, 01:41:04 PM

That's probably because there are processes on the 'F' Drive which are active/in use.

The only other thing I can suggest is to get hold of a programme called 'Powerquest Partition Magic'. I use this to partition, format and rename Drives so I know it works.

poliss · December 22, 2011, 01:50:24 PM

I'm not really worried about the drive letter. I was used to saving everything on D: with my old one.
It's the mysterious boot problems that bother me. All the diagnostic programs say everything is fine. Before you ask, I changed the CMOS battery not that long ago.

Chinahand · December 22, 2011, 01:54:53 PM

So many programmes default to looking in the C Drive that I think this may be the root cause of the Boot problem though. Once it actually manages to boot up from F it knows where to look. Until you get F changed to C it is difficult to be sure.

poliss · December 22, 2011, 02:04:52 PM

It did exactly the same with the old drive, that's why I think it's a motherboard problem.

My new laptop doesn't like my old USB mouse either. Mouse works fine on this puter. New one runs Win7 home premium. This puter is on the much friendlier XP.

Chinahand · December 22, 2011, 02:08:44 PM

I've run out of ideas

poliss · December 22, 2011, 02:27:33 PM

Computers are a great way to go bald. lol

MikeDunn · December 22, 2011, 02:33:30 PM

Quote from: poliss on December 22, 2011, 02:04:52 PM
It did exactly the same with the old drive, that's why I think it's a motherboard problem.

Time to ditch, methinks, in that case ...

Do you do anything either processor- or graphics-intensive ? If not - you should be able to track down a bare-bones system that you can transplant your new drive into at a low cost ...

Mike

poliss · December 22, 2011, 02:42:08 PM

Only YouTube. Yep, I know I need a new puter, but as the guns on my telly are acting up too, I don't think I can afford one. Xmas has been very expensive this year and I won't be getting the DCC controller that I wanted. *sob*

poliss · December 22, 2011, 02:48:19 PM

After I had put the new hard drive in, plugged all the USB, speaker, LAN modem, printer, card reader, external hard drive, webcam in and pressed the start button, nothing happened. System was totally dead.

I had forgotten to plug the power cable into the back.

MikeDunn · December 22, 2011, 02:57:14 PM

That'll be a 'no' then

Have a look @ Dabs & Scan - they do some decent barebone systems to transplant your drive into, at low costs ... but good luck with this unit until money permits.

Mike

EddieA · December 22, 2011, 05:39:54 PM

Hi

Just another quick thought (and I'm not a professional computer expert, I have just found out the hard way by trial and error, usually the latter!). I had a PC which would give various Hard Disk errors on start up or would start up then die at some point. After much messing around I discovered that there was an intermittant fault in the IDE lead. Don't know if the experts on here think it is worth trying?

If so I know that IDE is pre- historic and I don't know if you can still readily get them but I have a box of parts I have rescued from old pcs' and I am sure that I have a cable in it - happy to send it to you for nought if you want to try it. If so just drop me a PM.

regards
Eddie

poliss · December 22, 2011, 06:03:24 PM

Thanks for the offer.

I have another IDE cable somewhere. I replaced it for a cable with two connectors when I installed a DVD writer. If the problems persist I might try putting the old cable back in. Not really keen on doing any more work on the ((^)&** machine till after Xmas. It's not so much replacing the parts that I mind, but unplugging and plugging all those cables back in. I have to pull the computer out from my desk part way to get at the back of it.