A Completely Unrelated Series of Thoughts... Part 6

[Mr. Ksoft]

More info needed on your computer.  Can you get into your bios settings ?  If so what is the boot sequence of drives ?  Some computers have cd-rom drivers built into the bios.  Select it to boot from cd-rom first.  Then try your linux install disk.  If not follow the sequence of drive boots usually A: Floppy Drive, C: Hard Drive, E: Whatever else you have.  Hopefully you have some kind of recovery disk, disc.  If it's a pre XP comp at the least you can get to dos prompt and be able to figure something out.  I don't think your comp is a door stop.

OK, here's some factoids.  It's a mid-2005, semi-cheap HP Pavilion.  Athlon 64 3500+, 2.2ghz.  Started with 1 GB of RAM and I upgraded it to 2 GB about a year ago.  It has a 250gb SATA hard drive, a lightscribe DVD burner, and a DVD drive.  The video and audio are both onboard (ATI Radeon Xpress 200 and Realtek AC '97 respectively).  I also added a wireless-G PCI card about a year and a half ago.

I'm able to get into the bios and mess with settings completely fine.  The boot order is set up as 1. USB Devices,  2. CD drives, and 3. Hard drives (no floppy drive).  I can also boot from stuff by pressing ESC which takes me to the BIOS's built in boot menu, where I can select any plugged in device.  So basically everything works fine unless it tries to load an OS.  Linux gave me some error about ACPI and broken padding, but I googled the problem and can't find a solution.  Makes me think that something managed to disable ACPI on the bios (which is not user configurable unlike some other motherboards), as Windows will crash if you install with ACPI and then disable it later.  Maybe a fresh install would work.  Linux, however, should therefore boot with the "noapic" command which disables it, and it doesn't.  It still complains about ACPI not having a timer or something, then stalls completely and says it can't mount the root device.

I have my system restore discs, but I have no plans to use them because they come so loaded with crapware that you can't get a nice fast Windows install.  I do have a vanilla XP disc though so I plan to at least attempt a clean install on a spare hard drive.  If that goes though I can use it to take a look at what the hell happened and maybe also grab some of my stuff that was left behind.

Also, if it's worth anything, I am able to boot an old version of SystemRescueCD (which is Linux based), although I can't find anything to do with it unless I decide to reformat my hard drive.  I tried doing a system diagnostic test with it and it locked up trying to detect my CPU.

[logical123]

Sounds nice and bricked. Yummy.

I hate having to redo work. I got an Algebra assignment back today with the grade and note: '2/10, WORK?'. I didn't show any work, and I need like a 4 out of 10 to have an A, so I am doing all the work right now, and turning it in tomorrow. She'll then put the grade to 8/10, which will give me a 95.8% in her class, an A. :S

[Mr. Ksoft]

...yeah, this thing's bricked.  I just put in my spare hard drive and tried installing XP and the installer locked up before even getting to identifying my hardware.

I guess I'm going to have to take my old computer up to my room.  Pentium 2, 450 mhz, haven't used it in years!  I just tried, and it can't even surf the web without being slow!  This'll be fun...

[Hydrobond]

More info needed on your computer.  Can you get into your bios settings ?  If so what is the boot sequence of drives ?  Some computers have cd-rom drivers built into the bios.  Select it to boot from cd-rom first.  Then try your linux install disk.  If not follow the sequence of drive boots usually A: Floppy Drive, C: Hard Drive, E: Whatever else you have.  Hopefully you have some kind of recovery disk, disc.  If it's a pre XP comp at the least you can get to dos prompt and be able to figure something out.  I don't think your comp is a door stop.

He said that the linux disk did something, so the BIOS is not a problem. 

[Hydrobond]

...yeah, this thing's bricked.  I just put in my spare hard drive and tried installing XP and the installer locked up before even getting to identifying my hardware.

I guess I'm going to have to take my old computer up to my room.  Pentium 2, 450 mhz, haven't used it in years!  I just tried, and it can't even surf the web without being slow!  This'll be fun...

Can you take the hard drive out of your newer computer and put it into the old computer?  You might be able to read some information off of it that way...

[Mr. Ksoft]

Well, I'd love to, but there's a tiny problem.  The new computer uses the newer SATA type of hard drive.  The old computer is... well... old.  There's no SATA support, so until I get my hands on a computer that has SATA, no deal.


EDIT: Excellent news:  Discovered a possible culprit.  Memtest86 let me know that the RAM I added a year ago seems to have gone bad.  I removed it and Ubuntu, at least, boots.  (I'm typing from it now)... the bad news though is that Windows is still blue screening, safe mode or not.  Not even the Recovery Console works.  But Windows is replaceable.  As long as this functions I can get at my data then reformat or something.  I want to know why Windows doesn't want to boot yet though.
And I'm pissed that the RAM was part of the problem.  Now I'm out ANOTHER sixty bucks.  And the problem isn't even 100% fixed yet.

[The Metamorphosing Leon]

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

[img width=248 height=186]http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i32/LordofNothing/homer-1.gif?t=1229003877[/img]

SLEEP DEPRIVATION

Eh, I'm going to bed for a bit. Time for the paper yet...

[The Metamorphosing Leon]

Man, all that stands between me and three weeks of mindlessness is a conclusion to my paper...And it just isn't coming to me.

Maybe I should just quote some Fight Club.

[NES_Rules]

Damnit, I've been watching my post count for the past 200 posts to see the post counter say "leet" and I just realized I missed it[img width=33 height=21]http://www.digitpress.com/forum/images/smilies/2003_frustrated.gif[/img]

[Hydrobond]

The delete button is your friend...

[Sirgin]

Damnit, I've been watching my post count for the past 200 posts to see the post counter say "leet" and I just realized I missed it[img width=33 height=21]http://www.digitpress.com/forum/images/smilies/2003_frustrated.gif[/img]

Lol, I remember when I had it. Didn't last very long though.

[NES_Rules]

The delete button is your friend...

I don't know why I didn't think of that...

[The Metamorphosing Leon]

I just ordered a pizza.

ONLINE

[Izret101]

You are suck.

[Hydrobond]

I just ordered a pizza.

ONLINE

Welcome to the 21st century.  We're glad you could join us.