Lots of problems

[Sir Serpa]

My computer took a **** on me a few weeks back. I started to take it apart so I could piece it back together. My tower gets hit a lot so I figured something just came loose. Usually works. Well, since then, I found out I had a corneal ulcer in my left eye and had one about to form in my right. Long story short, I can't see because I can't wear contacts and I don't have a pair of glasses. I'm finally getting around to trying to fix the comp but I'm utterly clueless and praying its not what I think it is.

First off...No POST beep during start up. Used to get one everytime I'd boot.
Second: Inaccessible boot device error.
Third: Devices take longer than they used to to be recognized.

I have an MSI k8N Neo 3 Mobo. CPU is, I believe, an AMD 64 1.7. Dxdiag labeled it as Hammer-Family. 2 GB RAM. 80 GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.9. 20 GB Western Digital Caviar. Both EIDE. Seagate is master, WD is slave. and an nVidia 7600 GS...

So...any ideas...? *cringes*

[Kinetix]

Why does it get hit a lot? Move it somewhere where it won't be...

[AfterglowNoMore]

Cry?

[Charon]

Yeah, I got all that a week ago.

I switched it off, gave it a pretty hard kick (ironically), and hey, whaddayaknow...

[Sir Serpa]

I have a pretty ****ty desk. It's like a teachers desk from the 80s...Weighs 400 pounds. Made of 3/4" thick Steel and is covered in kevlar with a titanium coating...It's old and small...but bulletproof. Big CRT monitor, keyboard and mouse sit on the desk so there's not much room for the tower. It sits where the chair should and people always run into it with the chair. So I can't really move it until I buy a new desk which is just about at the bottom of my "how I should spend my money" list...

Well, other than kicking it...Any other suggestions? I"ll keep that as a last resort, though, Charon...Oh, and I got bored and drew Charon since I haven't had a comp. Once mine gets back up and running I'll upload it. =p

[Blackbat]

First off...No POST beep during start up. Used to get one everytime I'd boot.
Second: Inaccessible boot device error.
Third: Devices take longer than they used to to be recognized.

I have an MSI k8N Neo 3 Mobo. CPU is, I believe, an AMD 64 1.7. Dxdiag labeled it as Hammer-Family. 2 GB RAM. 80 GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.9. 20 GB Western Digital Caviar. Both EIDE. Seagate is master, WD is slave. and an nVidia 7600 GS...

So...any ideas...? *cringes*

Clarify something for me. You do get past the POST process or no?

[Sir Serpa]

Yeah. I'm running Windows 2000 Pro. I get past the "Starting Windows" screen and it comes to the loading screen with the logo. Gets to about 75% and gives the inaccessible boot device error. Tried switching out IDEs and it didn't help.

[Blackbat]

When you say you switched out IDEs, does that mean the cables? Or does that mean you switched actual controllers? Sounds like it could be one of three things, the IDE Controller, the HDD itself or you have a corrupt system file on the HDD.

You can try a repair from a Win2k boot disk to fix a corrupt system file. You can switch the IDE controllers of the bootable HDD to see if it's the controller. If it's just a HDD on it's way out then there isn't much you can do to fix that but if the other two are eliminated as problems it might leave only this possibility.

Of course this is just going off the limited info I have from what you've described in this post. If it were me, I'd first switch IDE controllers to eliminate that possibility as it's the easiest thing to check right away. Then i would run the chkdsk utility from a command prompt and give the HDD a good once over. It won't fix anything complicated but it's a good indication of what kind of state the HDD is in, if it notes several corruptions or bad sectors then you at least have an idea that the HDD might be part of the problem.

Also, something to think about before doing anything major, what changed in the week or two before the machine stopped working? New program/driver? New hardware? Did it get dropped? Power Surge? Anything that might have altered how the machine operates.

[Sir Serpa]

Startling development! After BB's post, I checked all my connections and it appears as though one of my fans had a lone black wire coming out of the power connection. I'm assuming its the ground...Wire 3. I unplugged it and the delay during post is gone. But still getting the inaccessible boot device error.

[Sir Serpa]

When you say you switched out IDEs, does that mean the cables? Or does that mean you switched actual controllers? Sounds like it could be one of three things, the IDE Controller, the HDD itself or you have a corrupt system file on the HDD.

You can try a repair from a Win2k boot disk to fix a corrupt system file. You can switch the IDE controllers of the bootable HDD to see if it's the controller. If it's just a HDD on it's way out then there isn't much you can do to fix that but if the other two are eliminated as problems it might leave only this possibility.

Of course this is just going off the limited info I have from what you've described in this post. If it were me, I'd first switch IDE controllers to eliminate that possibility as it's the easiest thing to check right away. Then i would run the chkdsk utility from a command prompt and give the HDD a good once over. It won't fix anything complicated but it's a good indication of what kind of state the HDD is in, if it notes several corruptions or bad sectors then you at least have an idea that the HDD might be part of the problem.

Also, something to think about before doing anything major, what changed in the week or two before the machine stopped working? New program/driver? New hardware? Did it get dropped? Power Surge? Anything that might have altered how the machine operates.

The cables.

And I left the comp on to download something overnight. When I woke up, comp was off. Not 100% positive, but I'm pretty sure I could log back on afterwards and the problem occured after. About a week before it crapped out, the comp would shut itself off after closing out of Teamspeak or if I'd get kicked from the server...Occasionally when I'd boot the comp back up, it wouldn't recognize that I had a slave drive.

[Blackbat]

The cables.

And I left the comp on to download something overnight. When I woke up, comp was off. Not 100% positive, but I'm pretty sure I could log back on afterwards and the problem occured after. About a week before it crapped out, the comp would shut itself off after closing out of Teamspeak or if I'd get kicked from the server...Occasionally when I'd boot the comp back up, it wouldn't recognize that I had a slave drive.

Have you tried to get back into windows via safe mode?

The slave HDD is the 20GB, which isn't the one that holds your OS, correct? I would start going down the list eliminating possible causes until it narrows itself down to actual problem as I stated in my previous post. Also another thing to try, take the slave (20GB HDD) out of the equation all together (unplug the power from it so it doesn't spin up), it's just one more variable that doesn't need to be there. Especially since you said you were having problems with it randomly not showing up, it's to much of a coincidence for me to ignore.

It does sound like a hardware issue as opposed to software by the description you are giving, but you never know.

[Sir Serpa]

Can't get to safemode. Same Device error.

Tried booting from Primary CD drive. Got "acpi.sys is missing or corrupt". So far its working on secondary CD drive...Using recovery console to chkdsk the drive.

[Blackbat]

Can't get to safemode. Same Device error.

Tried booting from Primary CD drive. Got "acpi.sys is missing or corrupt". So far its working on secondary CD drive...Using recovery console to chkdsk the drive.


So you have 2 CD drives and 2 HDD's?

The secondary CD drive is working but when trying to boot off the first CD drive it gave you an error? Is the first CD drive on the same controller as 80GB HDD that you can't boot from?

[Sir Serpa]

:yoy:

IT WORKS!

Took out the old primary, used the old secondary as the primary and ran emergency repair. Also unplugged the slave HD and bum fan. Did emergency repair and I saw my lovely desktop again...I could rape you right now. <3

lol. Thanks so much! Can't thank you enough. ^_^

[Sir Serpa]

*sighs* Well, it would appear I've lost the entirety of my DBZ Episodes and Movies along with some 1400+ odd songs... The Slave HD seems to **** up everything...Can't recognize both of em for some reason. Gonna try it in another comp in a little bit. =/

[Blackbat]

*sighs* Well, it would appear I've lost the entirety of my DBZ Episodes and Movies along with some 1400+ odd songs... The Slave HD seems to **** up everything...Can't recognize both of em for some reason. Gonna try it in another comp in a little bit. =/

If those files are on the secondary but screw everything up on that comp, you are right, put it in another and copy that stuff off. Since it's only a 20GB once you have all the data off just trash it and get a bigger one if you really need more space.

Glad you found the problem and got it worked out. :)

[Kinetix]

Phew, at least the DBZ episodes are gone.

[Sir Serpa]

D:

How dare you! My DBZ is no different than any other childhood shows...Thundercats...Transformers...Blue's Clues...

Screw you, all!