One good deed = 2 pc problems

woj101

My younger borther has just started his university course so I've been trying to help him out by reviving a disused pc that I'd been told only required a new hard drive.

Prob 1: I ordered the hard drive and set it up as the slave drive on my own pc in order to install windows on it. Installation was fine and disk had been formatted as NTFS. I then placed the new hdd (with new IDE cable that has been confirmed as working) into the other pc. Upon switching on the power all I got was a message to the effect of 'System disk error - no boot disk found, press F1 to retry. I reset and held F2 to go to the BIOS but the automatic hdd detection feature in the bios found nothing.
At this point I googled the symptoms and knowing that the hdd and IDE cable was fine, came to the guess-clusion that either the IDE controller on the motherboard was kaput or, as seen suggested elsewhere, that the CMOS needed resetting. So as a last resort I removed the little round battery, assuming this was the CMOS battery, and then just put it back in, and also fiddled with the little jumper that was near to it. Putting everything back as it had previously been I am now getting no system initialisation at all - i.e. I press the 'power on' button but nothing happens. The PSU is presumably fine cos it was working 5 mins before (and all changes were made while it was all unplugged). So I don't know what gives there.

Problem 2: On my own pc, because I installed a different version of windows on the slave hdd I got the choice on boot up of which OS to boot. But since removing the slave hdd I am still getting the same choice, even thought there is only one hdd and one OS present. Does anyone know how I can stop this from happening?

Many thanks for any contributions.

spud17

Is this any help?

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=567690

Conor_3

Basically you made a mess of it. It's coming up with the System Disk Error because you installed Windows on a Hard drive which was configured as the slave in a machine so the system files which should have been written to the hard drive are now currently residing on your computer which is why you're also getting the choice.

It gets worse.

Chances are Windows won't start as the motherboard chipset is different and if it does, it'll be as flaky as hell from having the wrong drivers etc.
The drive will have been assigned the drive letter D and all registry entries will point to that.

To get yourself out of the mess...

Re-install XP on the computer for your son with the hard drive that's going to be in it, in it and not yours.

On your PC, go to Control Panel, System, Advanced, Startup and Recovery, settings then on the next window that opens, select the proper default OS and untick the two check boxes below.

woj101

I'll try it. Should do the trick. That's problem 2 solved, if you can be as efficient with problem 1 I'll get you a gold star.

Thanks muchly.

Edit: Ooh, someone else has pitched in early too. Cheers. That sounds promising, but only if I can get it to boot again. Any ideas what I've done there?

Many thaks guys.

wakandem

Are the jumpers set to master?
Double check the connections it is so easy to think you have got it right when it isn't - i've been there.

Unplug the drive and see if it starts. If not reset the bios again & try to start it again. If it starts then try it again with the drive in
If no good then disconnect everything from the motherboard inc keyboards mice usb stuff cd. Take out cards/ram as last resort. just the screen, reset bios and power up, You should get something like a beeeeeeep, then start adding stuff one by one untill it doesn't work and you should have the dodgy part.

coner is correct in that you will have to install windows again on the pc

woj101

Wow - this is all much more promising than I was expecting in such a short time, and all stuff I think I understand, too!

Thanks guys. It'll have to wait til morning before I try it all but I'll let you know. Cheers.

woj101

Well, the solution to Prob 2 did the trick - only had to choose the OS I wanted and uncheck the box, didn't bother with notepad file. Job done.

But Prob 1 is doing my nut. I've disconnected everything from the motherboard that I know is peripheral - cd drive, hdd, floppy drive, ethernet card, ram, monitor. When I flick the power on at the wall socket I am getting the familiar 'fart' noise from the psu, but there's still absolutely no sign of life when I press the pc's on button. At this stage I'm still thinking the psu is fine because of the fart noise and because it was fine before I started tinkering.

Does anyone know the power up sequence of a pc and the function of the little battery and jumper. They're the only things I've fiddled with. If the battery was flat would that prevent boot up?

wakandem

If everything has been disconnected and it won't start then it can only be the mb or psu.
The 5v line is always on to the mb and some have an led on the board that will light when the psu is plugged in.
Ther battery holds the cmos and if weak or not present will force the default values to be loaded and will not affect the starting ability.
Check the reset jumpers have been replaced correctly on pin 1 & 2 , 2 & 3 normally being reset. Have you used the correct jumper for a reset? If not sure - remove battery and short out the connectors directly with a bit of foil.
The next option is to check the psu somehow, or try it with another one.
my money is on the psu

culpepper

Im guessing here but if you installed windows on a second drive while it was connected to your computer,wont the boot record be on your own main hard drive?
If so,the second drive wont have a way to know how to boot.
if not that
Some of the files will be specific to the pc they were installed on and so that will effect wether you can boot the other computer. I wonder if putting the installation disc in his pc and booting from that,then choosing repair would fix the problems??

woj101

Looks like the psu was part of the problem. Can't understand why - it was working last night, and I never make any changes with the power switched on. So annoying - if I have to fork out for a new psu as well it starts to make the whole thing not worth doing - may as well get a new pc instead. Has anyone ever successfully revived a psu?

I'm now in the dangerous position of swapping my good psu from pc to pc. The new hdd is currently in my pc getting formatted. I'll then swap it and the psu to the old pc and try reinstalling windows from there. Perhaps I can pick a used psu from somewhere.

Conor_3

What happens with the PSU is the capacitors dry out over time.

With NEW PSU's being around £15-£20 for a low powered no-name at most computer shops (except PC World but you never know), there's absolutely no point in putting in a second hand one. Just buy the lowest rated one they do.