HELP....PC won't boot up...

[BearFace]

I've just built a a new PC from scratch and to my surprise it worked first time. However I wanted to give my old one - which is a P4 2.4 GHz on a Gigabyte Titan motherboard and running 1GB of RamBus memory - to my ex girlfriend, but I'm having trouble booting it up, despite the fact that it's worked perfectly for three years.

When I set up the new PC, the only thing I did to the old one was remove the hard drive, which I needed to keep. I therefore went out and bought a Hitachi Deskstar 80GB replacement and fitted it as normal to the old machine, before driving it and the old monitor over to the ex's house to install.

I re-assembled the machine and switched it on, and while the system and CPU fans came on and I heard three bleeps (it used to be just one... ), nothing appeared on the screen and the monitor went to power-saving mode. I couldn't tell if the new HD was spinning, but I don't believe it was, to be honest.

The system has a 128MB GeForce gfx card installed, and I wondered if it could be seated incorrectly or perhaps contaminated by dust? I also wondered about the jumper settings on the new HD, as it it is currently set to Device 0 (Master).

I know there are people here with far greater knowledge than I about these things, so I'm appealing to those of you right now...

Any ideas..???



Thanks, in anticipation

EDIT: The system is also fitted with a Samsung CD ReWriter and a regular floppy drive. I have a full, legit copy of Windows XP Pro SP2 as well as a Win 98 boot disk and a copy of Windows 98.

 

[andy_k]

I'd suggest you need to have a look in the BIOS/setup options which are usually accessible by pressing one of the F keys during the initial start up - there should be a prompt on the screen.

Once you get into it there will be a setup page for the hard drives - get it to detect the new drive and save the data to the BIOS

reboot and your computer should see the new drive

HTH

Andy

 

[BearFace]

I'd suggest you need to have a look in the BIOS/setup options which are usually accessible by pressing one of the F keys during the initial start up - there should be a prompt on the screen.

Once you get into it there will be a setup page for the hard drives - get it to detect the new drive and save the data to the BIOS

reboot and your computer should see the new drive

Thanks Andy. Only trouble is, there's nothing appearing on-screen at all, so I'm unable to access the BIOS. The monitor light stays solid for just a few seconds when I fire up the machine, and then it goes to power-saving mode, which kinda makes things a bit tricky...

 

[andy_k]

hmmm - interesting

Once you've made sure that the new drive is connected properly (usually yellow wire on the connector at the outside of the drive) and it's cable is seated into the motherboard

I'd try disconnecting all the drives except the new hard drive then see if it will restart - maybe try it on the other channel.

After that I'd reinstall the other drives and see if the problem arises again.

Can you test the new drive in another machine - it's always possible that you have picked up a dodgy one

The power supply can also throw up some weird results - do you have a spare one of those lying around

Andy

 

[BearFace]

hmmm - interesting

I'd try disconnecting all the drives except the new hard drive then see if it will restart - maybe try it on the other channel.

After that I'd reinstall the other drives and see if the problem arises again.

Can you test the new drive in another machine - it's always possible that you have picked up a dodgy one

Andy

Yeah, it's odd isn't it..?

I'm thinking I'll do as you suggest, but also I might just whip out the graphics card and RAM modules, blow out the cobwebs and re-seat them, just to be sure.

When you say "try it on the other channel", you mean connect the drive via the other IDE socket on the M/B, right?

Any ideas as to why the usual single bleep has been replaced by three of varying tones? A friend suggested the board may have been inadvertently reset, but I dunno...

Thanks again

 

[fuzzer]

if it were me , id take everything out and put it back in.

 

[BearFace]

if it were me , id take everything out and put it back in.

It's becoming increasingly likely that I will have to do precisely that...

 

[sparkyspost]

Dude,

Listen to your beeps again.
Are they 3 short beeps, or 1 long and 2 short?

1 long beep means normal running.

There are beep codes that you can search for but these tend to vary by Bios.
(Google it for more info but basically it is 8 for memory and 3 for graphics card or the other way round .) http://bioscentral.com/beepcodes/amibeep.htm (There are other bioses that you can check here too)

If you aren't getting any graphics, then I would take out the hdd, its not needed to get a display. If you have a spare graphics card it is worth installing that to test also.

I'd reseat the memory or try removing it down to a single chip (and swapping these around).
It is possible you have knackered them by looking at them
Worth rechecking all connections, and with the data leads to hdds cd/dvd etc that the red line on is by the power.

If the new hard drive is going to be using the same o/s version as your new pc, you could add it as an additional drive there. Have you partitioned it already? Have you got a boot disk to start it all up when you are ready to install?

Hope that helps.

Cheers

Mark.

 

[SEM]

3 beeps usaually mem (but you know this)
You may still get it when installing a new drive

I did a similar thing with a new drive... have you tried the alteratives to boot from bios F2 F3 , Del esc F8 etc either way you have just changed the drive.. your mobo should when/if prompted recognise this.... and alert you.

63$ point to remember (which i'm sure you know) if you have installed most of the MS updates, thay are becoming more dependant on recognising your PC (footprint) build as a point of software licencing (the new GUI.. dont install if you want to copy your fave software to another machine on your network)... now doing the rounds GUI deleter?? wonder why?

 

[DieselE]

This may be completely off base but are you sure that the computer is recognising the new HD. It will be set to boot from the hard drive but in copying your system from one drive to another you might have made slight changes which the computer no longer recognises.

Just like the computer's owner made changes in his life with a new component who would not interface with the earlier version.