Dropped computer - HELP

[Dunbar]

A co-worker of mine picked up her computer after I graciously added a USB card for her new digital camera. On the drive home the computer tipped over making a rather violent sound. Alas the computer is right back in my hands. I opened it up and made sure everything was "pushed down." The boot process is normal right up until the (color) Windows 2000 loading bar gets half way up and it just hangs, I can't hear any HD seeking activity. Also, right about that time the CD tray pops out and stays open (even if you push it back in.) This is an older custom built computer - Abit BH6 MB, PII 366@450, 192MB ram, 9GB HD, CDRW etc. Does anyone have any idea what is bad and how to test for it?

Thanks

 

[ScrapSilicon]

my condolences....part by part..starting with easy stuff like the ram..you do have another same chipped board that runs well you can test all the components on..right? I'm leaning toward harddrive platter crashing..but could be any of the components.. .. <edit> better yet if you have a spare harddrive with XP(very adaptive OS there..) on it ..do a quick dirty install and then test all the rest of the system..goodluck!

 

[Dolemite76]

eww... that's why cars have seatbelts... hehe... sounds like a simple hardware fix/tweak won't work here... fall down go boom means is broked... sorry...

 

[Dunbar]

OK, here's what I just tried. Swapped the Maxtor HD from this Athlon box into the bad computer, this HD has XP on it. It didn't want to boot, I get the safe mode option screen but it wouldn't load. Then I swapped the HD from the bad computer into this Athlon box, gets just to the color loading bar then I get a bluescreen which says "INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE..." Does that narrow it down any?

 

[ScrapSilicon]

Athy to an Intel ..hard to get that to go across(possible if you blowout all the drivers..esp. the AMD ones..)..the 9Gb ..still doing the same with even more info from your mobo..most likely the harddrive had crashy inside as well need new HD(or get you a fatter bigger one and defray the cost by selling yours to a lady in need..) ..

 

[Operandi]

OK, here's what I just tried. Swapped the Maxtor HD from this Athlon box into the bad computer, this HD has XP on it. It didn't want to boot, I get the safe mode option screen but it wouldn't load. Then I swapped the HD from the bad computer into this Athlon box, gets just to the color loading bar then I get a bluescreen which says "INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE..." Does that narrow it down any?

Ouch....

Anyway, the mostly likely component to be damaged would be the ones with physical moving parts, hard drive comes to mind first. I would try to find a clean hard drive and do quick install of your OS of choice. Trying to use a two drives that came from such drastically different hardware configurations is asking for trouble I'm not surprised neither one wants to boot.

 

[Dunbar]

OK, took the bad HD out and tried to put it into the Athlon box on the secondary IDE channel (with the CD-ROM.) Computer hangs up when detecting IDE drives then tells me to insert System Disk. I unplugged the CD-ROM to get around any jumper issues (it's jumpered as master). Is this common error or is the HD bad?

BTW, I no longer have any spare HD's laying around (all are in systems now )

 

[Operandi]

OK, took the bad HD out and tried to put it into the Athlon box on the secondary IDE channel (with the CD-ROM.) Computer hangs up when detecting IDE drives then tells me to insert System Disk. I unplugged the CD-ROM to get around any jumper issues (it's jumpered as master). Is this common error or is the HD bad?

Just to make sure I'm understanding this right...

The Athlon machine has the bad HD on its 2nd IDE channel and its normal drive on the 1st channel as the boot device, and the Athlon won't boot? If that?s the case it sounds like the HD died and will have to be replaced.

 

[Dunbar]

OK, my bad the IDE cable was on backwards (this cable has no marks for proper insertion.) I have the HD in the XP box and ran checkdisk on both partitions. No errors were found, how can I check this HD more thoroughly?

 

[Operandi]

OK, my bad the IDE cable was on backwards (this cable has no marks for proper insertion.) I have the HD in the XP box and ran checkdisk on both partitions. No errors were found, how can I check this HD more thoroughly?

Well aside from formatting the drive and trying to re-install windows on it you could try a surface scan. It would take awhile but it should turn up any errors if there are any problems with the drive.

 

[Dunbar]

How do I do that in XP?

 

[Operandi]

How do I do that in XP?

Ha, good question can't say as though I've done it yet myself in XP yet, a good thing I guess .

I'm looking check disk app right now and I see the "scan for and attempt to recovery of bad sectors" option. That sounds kinda like a surface scan to me, if not I'm sure there are 3rd party programs that will do it as well.

 

[Dunbar]

I did that, took a few minutes per partition. Nothing noted, does that mean the HD checks out a-OK?

 

[McMadman]

It sounds like the drive might be fine. It might be worth downloading a manufacturers scan program for whoever makes the drive, you may or may not need a boot disk to use these scanners.

If you have a spare good drive around I'd install a new copy of an os on it and use it in her computer as a test to see if everything else is still working.

 

[Operandi]

I did that, took a few minutes per partition. Nothing noted, does that mean the HD checks out a-OK?

I'm inclined to think so, McMadman?s idea isn't a bad one you may want to give that a try. As for the whole system I think the best way to test for problems is try a installing a fresh install of an OS on that system. You could simply try to re-install over the top of the existing install. Or backup the 9 gigs of data onto a bigger drive via ghost and then do clean install, since you don?t have any spare drives to use.

 

[McMadman]

I've had bad luck reinstalling over an existing install, of course my situation was different (mb swap = dead win2k installation) and thats straying from the topic.

Have you tried booting (win2k) with the debugging option on incase it hangs in a different area with an error message?

 

[Dunbar]

Update, I ran Norton disk doctor at it came out okay. I can start the computer in safe mode just fine. I'll try the utility, any other advice at this point?

 

[McMadman]

A logged boot would work as well as long as you can read the file, might help narrow down the problem.

You might also want to start pulling some cards incase one of those could be causing your lockup

 

[desktopsilver]

my favorite is pulling the small watch like battery to reset the bios then axcess the bios and make sure all is correct,,,,,then go into your safe mode and defragg,,,,jump up and down three timmes shucks i dont know,,,,

 

[desktopsilver]

when i tried my raid 0 aray setup that is what mine would do hang at the 1/2 bar position i think i was supposed to wait 5 min or so for the comp to config itself which it does hidden like in 2000//as oposed to out in the open like 98/me,,,,,,give it 10 min also see if it comes out of it thenn jump up and down three times

 

[Operandi]

Update, I ran Norton disk doctor at it came out okay. I can start the computer in safe mode just fine. I'll try the utility, any other advice at this point?

So the system dose work, at least on some level. I would take out all unnecessary hardware and try booting off of that, if you haven?t done that already. If that doesn?t work you can try re-assembling the entire machine, just to make sure everything is as it should.

 

[Dunbar]

Well I ran Maxtor's check utility (which found nothing) rebooted and the system works. Seems to be a little slow but it's working fine. All the hardware is in too, I didn't have to strip it down. I guess I'll degrag and hope for the best

Thanks everyone for the help,
DB

 

[ScrapSilicon]

Originally posted by: Dunbar
Well I ran Maxtor's check utility (which found nothing) rebooted and the system works. Seems to be a little slow but it's working fine. All the hardware is in too, I didn't have to strip it down. I guess I'll degrag and hope for the best

Thanks everyone for the help,
DB

heh..better get it back to its owner/destroyer quick..maybe one of the harddrive's DSP is whacked and subject to tossage at a bad(good?) moment...dma33 compared to dma 100/133 is noticeable..(also 5.4k vs. 7.2k ..) gl