old socket 7 computer gone wonky

G

Guest

Guest
Hey,

I was trying to fix up an old socket 7 computer for my sister, and I've run into some problems. Like I said, it's a socekt 7 board (Asus TXP4), with P233MMX proc.

I fdisked the harddrive to start on a clean slate, and when I restarted the thing, it wouldn't go past testing the PCI cards. I can get into bios setup and whatnot, but if I just let it do it's thing, it doesn't let me format the hard drive or anything. What do I need to do?

I don't think it's any of the components, as the computer worked fine before I fdisked the harddrive. It's got an old crappy 2d video card, harddrive, cd and floppy. Nothing else and still there's problems. Help!

Thanks

'Intelligent humor is all well and fine, but people laugh harder at dirty jokes' - John Lithgow
 

HonestJhon

Distinguished
Apr 29, 2001
2,334
0
19,780
check the ide cables...may have gotten bumped or something, and believe me, on older boards, where the cables, and connectors are older, the connections are sensative!
just double check everything.

-DAvid

-Live, Learn, then build your own computer!-
 
G

Guest

Guest
I'm 99% sure it's not the cables; I just checked that. Same error.

Plus, it started to screw up right after I fdisked the hard drive from dos. I didn't open the case in between.

It doesn't make sense, the computer recognizes all the devices that I've got attachted, but it still hangs. Any ideas?

'Intelligent humor is all well and fine, but people laugh harder at dirty jokes' - John Lithgow
 

njeske

Distinguished
Jul 26, 2001
400
0
18,780
Try removing all your PCI cards, except for video of course. It will probably boot after that. Then go ahead and load Windows. After that, add the cards back in one at a time to make sure they all work.

If pulling the cards doesn't allow it to boot, then I would double check all your cable connections again, and also make sure your memory is propperly installed. Also, try booting without the hard drive plugged in. I have had bad hard drives cause older systems to lock up in the past. Including my old P200MMX system.


<font color=red>"I'm not gonna launch a $2 million missile at a $10 tent and hit a camel's butt." -Bush</font color=red>
 
G

Guest

Guest
Yea, I've tried removing all the pci cards and such. I don't really understand it. I'll try the hard drive thinger in a bit...I'm in the middle of a good game :D

'Intelligent humor is all well and fine, but people laugh harder at dirty jokes' - John Lithgow
 
G

Guest

Guest
OK, so the problem is definitely my hard drive. When I disconnect it, I am able to start installing Win 95.

So how do I fix the hard drive? I could slave it to this computer and re-format it and such. If I do that, what do I need to do? This computer runs WinXP...all I wanna do is fix the old hard drive so that it'll work with the old computer. Will I have to restart this computer in DOS and then reformat the old hard drive, and if so, what are the command line prompts?

Thanks for the help.

'Intelligent humor is all well and fine, but people laugh harder at dirty jokes' - John Lithgow
 

njeske

Distinguished
Jul 26, 2001
400
0
18,780
Well... at least the first step of determining the problem is done. From your post, I am understanding that you have a second computer that you can use to reformat the bad one. Based on this assumption, I would simply put the "bad" drive on it's own IDE cable as master. If you have to temporarily unplug a CD-ROM drive or something, so be it. Then, just use Windows XP to format it using FAT or FAT32.

If you would rather do it the slower way, or if you have to for some reason, just use a Windows 95 or 98 (not ME) boot disk to boot to a command prompt on a system where the "bad" drive can't be booted from. ie: Make it primary slave, or anything on the secondary port even if it is the only drive in the system. If it won't boot due to the drive being connected, tell the BIOS that all your IDE connections or Empty or NONE. Once you can boot to a command prompt, just use fdisk and format as you normally would. Hopefully that fixes your problem.


<font color=red>"I'm not gonna launch a $2 million missile at a $10 tent and hit a camel's butt." -Bush</font color=red>
 
G

Guest

Guest
I've just finished formatting the old drive on this computer. Next I'm going to move it to the new computer and see how that works out. Hopefully everything will be fine. Thanks for the help.

'Intelligent humor is all well and fine, but people laugh harder at dirty jokes' - John Lithgow
 
G

Guest

Guest
Well, it didn't go as well as I had hoped. I managed to install Windows 95 on the old computer, but I ran into some trouble again. When the computer had to restart, everything went fine until it had to boot Windows:

"Invalid system disk."
"Remove the disk and then press any key."

Naturally, pressing any key only makes the same error occur again. I'm not too sure what's going on. I was able to play around in there, but I couldn't figure out the problem.

Setting the computer to boot only from C in bios doesn't help any, either. Could the hard drive be damaged? I wouldn't think so, because I was able to install win95 on it.

Any suggestions?
Thanks

'Intelligent humor is all well and fine, but people laugh harder at dirty jokes' - John Lithgow
 
G

Guest

Guest
Well unless there is a floppy in it then the hd doesn't have the sys files. You could always try to copy the sys files to disk then copy them to the drive in DOS. Other than that I would try to format and reload windows again. If it keeps giving you problems then it's gone. Is it making any clicking or banging noises?
 
G

Guest

Guest
OK, where are the sys files that I would have to copy to the C drive? Where would I find them? The boot disk or the win95 cd?

I might try redo-ing the whole thing over again. I don't think the hard drive is dead yet though..It's not making any abnormal noises. Then again, it is about 4 years old. It might just be past it's prime.

'Intelligent humor is all well and fine, but people laugh harder at dirty jokes' - John Lithgow
 

njeske

Distinguished
Jul 26, 2001
400
0
18,780
Well... I have had this sort of thing happen to me a couple times. And both times the hard drive was damaged, but eventually usable. What probably is the problem is that there are some bad sectors on your hard drive. Windows install does not check the drive for bad sectors before doing its install, so it is very possible for it to put files like "command.com", "msdos.sys", and "io.sys" into bad sectors on accident. To check for this, you can either put the drive into another system and run Scandisk on it from Windows, or you can use a Windows 9x bootdisk that has "scandisk.exe" and "scandisk.ini" on it to scan from a command prompt on your current system. Obviously, it could take upwards of an hour or two to do a full surface scan of the drive, but in the end it could definitely be worth it.


<font color=red>"I'm not gonna launch a $2 million missile at a $10 tent and hit a camel's butt." -Bush</font color=red>
 
G

Guest

Guest
Great, sounds like a good idea.

Will scan disk run faster on the old computer (P233MMX) or on this computer (XP1600)? What I mean is, does scandisk go any faster with a faster processor, or is it limited by the speed of the hard drive?

Thanks

'Intelligent humor is all well and fine, but people laugh harder at dirty jokes' - John Lithgow
 

njeske

Distinguished
Jul 26, 2001
400
0
18,780
It is entirely limited by the hard drive speed. I would just keep the drive in the computer you have it in now, and use a boot disk to scan it. That is much easier of a task, and it will go just as slow as it would on the other computer system. Just make sure you get all the scandisk files onto your bootdisk. If you already have a Windows 98 Startup disk, all the files are already on there.


<font color=red>"I'm not gonna launch a $2 million missile at a $10 tent and hit a camel's butt." -Bush</font color=red>
 
G

Guest

Guest
Well, after using scandisk, it still doesn't work properly. I first scanned the old hard drive on this computer with WinXP, then tried again. Didn't work. I then reinstalled Win95. Didn't work. Tried scandisk once more (using a start-up disk on the old computer). Didn't work.

Way I see it, I've got a couple options:
1. Re-format the thing and try again (Is there any point in doing this?).
2. Try and get a copy of Win98 and try with that.
3. Give up.

Your thoughts / advice?

'Intelligent humor is all well and fine, but people laugh harder at dirty jokes' - John Lithgow
 

Crashman

Polypheme
Former Staff
It could be something as simple as the BIOS setting for your drive, make sure LBA is enabled, set BIOS to autodetect the drive.

If it's a WD drive with no slave on the chain, remove the Master jumper from the back, if there is a slave make sure the Master jumper is on and the other drive is set to slave.

What's the frequency, Kenneth?
 

yiliang

Distinguished
Apr 24, 2001
35
0
18,530
It's hard to understand what your problem is by reading it. What kind of HDs do you have? How was the old computer before you fdisked? Was there a IRQ confelict between video card and secoundery IDE?(IRQ15) Can you make sure at least one IDE port is working on the old computer? Check the old computer's Powersupply, you didn't OC did you? PCI running above 33Mhz can cause problem. Two computers, one XP HD, another old HD, right? Try this. Use the XP1600. Copy OS install files(win98/95/whatever) to the XP HD. Make the XP HD master, the old HD slave(make sure you get the jumper setting right). Set floppy boot first, and HD-0 second in BIOS. Scan the old HD in WindowsXP(was it formated?), if there're bad sectors, scandisk will prompt(and you can hear it)Bad sectors will be marked black on the screen so you can see if there's any. Shutdown, and disconect XP HD. I don't think Bad sectors can stop OS boot unless the bad sectors aren't fixed(marked unusable) A format is enough, why fdisk at first? Unless you have multi partitions. Boot with win98 startup floppy. If you can fdisk the old HD, then everything so far is good. Make a C: 512MB(FAT16) /D: the restMB left(should be FAT32). restart and format c: and D: of the old HD, have the XP HD back and copy the Win setup files to the 512MB partiton(shouldn't be C: anymore). Move the old HD back to the old computer. Boot win98 floppy. If you can't boot, try the secondery IDE. Secondery fails means impossible. Install windows in compact size to c: on in DOS. If you have Ghost, it'll be much easier. Just make an image back up on D: in case anything happens. Leave the partitions as they are. If this can't help you, then buy a new computer for your sis and ship the crap to me. Haha. Good luck!

Once I used my i386/34+i387 and 4 MB Ram for CAD...
 
This is a long shot. Did you set an active partition after you did f-disk &format?????? If no partition is set active the comp will say "Invalid system disk."
"Remove the disk and then press any key.".
So runF-disk aagain to set an active partition.


I aint signing nothing!!!
 
G

Guest

Guest
Thanks for the advice everyone. I'm at school now, but I'll see if I can get the damned thing working once I get home.

Crashman: Regarding the jumpers for the HD, where are the jumpers? On the back of the HD or on the mobo itself?

Just as a note, when I did scandisk the old HD, it reported having a few bad sectors. But I think I caught those sectors in an earlier scan (months earlier) because scandisk said it found no problems with the drive.

Thanks again.

'Intelligent humor is all well and fine, but people laugh harder at dirty jokes' - John Lithgow