Help! Siren coming from pc, & other problems...

[ckmckee]

Help! I am in process of reinstalling XP on a pc full of viruses. Deleted the partitions and tried to create a new one. A message appeared on screen as follows:

"your computer's startup program cannot gain access to the disk containing the partition or free space you chose. Setup cannot install Win XP on this hard disk."

"The lack of access does not necessarily indicate an error condition. For example disks attached to a SCSI adapter that wasn't installed by your computer manufacturer or to a secondary hard disk controller are typically not visible to the startup program unless special software is used. Contact your computer or hard disk controller manufacturer for more info."

"On x86-based computers this message may indicate a problem with the CMOS drive type settings. See your disk controller documentation for more info."

Then a siren/alarm (two-tones, sounds like a London police siren) began to sound from the speaker on the pc and has been sounding for atleast 15 minutes now.

I went ahead and clicked on "next" and began to format the drive, and it is 75% formatted now.

I don't know what to make of this. Any thoughts on this at all would be appreciated!

 

[gorlosky1]

The bells are motherboard (BIOS) standard signals.

Since you are saying you are virus heavy....Best to start with clearing the BIOS (pull the battery) and then format the Hard Drive on another clean system, before bringing it back into this system, else you will be fighting possible problems right from square one.

 

[ckmckee]

Ok, I've already pulled the CMOS battery out to clear the BIOS.
l believe I'll take your suggestion and remove the hard drive and hook it up to my laptop to format it. Will let you know how it goes. Thanks very much.

 

[aford10]

A clean format is a good idea, for sure. Make sure to do the full format, and not the quick one.

 

[ckmckee]

The bells are motherboard (BIOS) standard signals.

Since you are saying you are virus heavy....Best to start with clearing the BIOS (pull the battery) and then format the Hard Drive on another clean system, before bringing it back into this system, else you will be fighting possible problems right from square one.

snoofy1 here.....
I looked inside and dirt was caked in there. Removed the cpu heatsinc & fan and cleaned it, cleaned off the old compound and put some new thermal paste on it. Checked to be sure cables and RAM were seated well. Turned the pc on and power came on but screen was black.

Turned pc off and removed hard drive. Attached this hard drive to another pc and it was recognized. It is an 82 MB drive, however it only saw 48.2 MB. Am in process of formatting it now but was wondering if anyone know why it only sees 48 MB ?

 

[aford10]

I assume you mean 82GB and 48GB?

Was it windows or the BIOS, that recognized the 48.2GB?

 

[ckmckee]

Yes I meant GB and not MB. The pc I attached the hard drive to has Windows Xp on it and I am assuming that is what recognized the size of the drive.

 

[aford10]

So you checked the size of the drive inside of windows? If it's partitioned, that's why it was seeing that size.

 

[ckmckee]

Is there a way to delete the partition while it's connected to my laptop? If so please tell me what I should do. Thanks very much.

 

[gorlosky1]

Since you cleared the BIOS, did you go back into the BIOS and activate the drive connections ?

If that drive had some old reserved partition, it may have given you an erroneous response (not what you were expecting), BUT since you are doing a FULL format, it should have cleaned out all old partitions. You may have to go for a Low Level format which is specific to manufacturer.

aford10 has a good questions you need to answer.

 

[gorlosky1]

While connected to your laptop use Disk Management to Delete Logical Drives and Format the hard drive you are trying to clean up. (Right click on each partition and a menu pops up)

You should be able to get good info on the size of the drive from Disk Management

 

[ckmckee]

Okay, I went into Disk Management and the drive shows up in 2 parts: 48.83 GB NTFS Healthy (Active), and 27.86 GB Unallocated. I deleted the partition and it now shows 76.69 GB Unallocated. I want to be able to move this drive back over to my desktop and install XP Pro on it. Is there anything else I need to use Disk Management for? Am I ready to move the drive over to my desktop now?

 

[gorlosky1]

Since you say you are going to INSTALL, then during install the XP Pro software will tell you it will format your drive and wipe it clean. Soooo... prior to a format, you need to have partitioned the drive with Disk Management and assigned no drive letter as the primary drive will be seen as C: drive.

If it were me, I would partition as 2 drives, and later assign the page file to the other drive, where you would also store most of your changebale data, thereby your primary drive (with all your program basics) doesn't get so fragmented.

 

[aford10]

You don't need disk management for anything else.

1. Connect the drive back into the PC.
2. Power on the PC, and get into the BIOS (normally the delete key).
3. Make the optical drive the first boot device.
4. Insert the XP disc.
5. Save the BIOS changes.
6. Restart.
7. When you see the prompt to 'press any key,' do so at that time.
8. It will take you into the format/install process.
9. When it lists the allocated and unallocated space, delete any allocated space.
10. Make sure to do the full format on that unallocated space.
11. Follow the instructions to finish the format/install process.

 

[ckmckee]

After partitioning the hard drive (76.69 GB) while plugged into a different pc, I installed it back into the desktop and turned pc on. Got "checksum error" and I went into BIOS and set correct date and time, saved and exited. Put XP Pro cd into pc and restarted. It is now going through the clean install process.

The existing partitions that show up are as follows:

15284 MB Disk on disk [MBR]
D: Partition1 [Unknown] 15284 MB <15283 MB free>
Unpartitioned space 0 MB

78529 MB Disk 0 at Id 0 on bus 0 on atapi [MBR]
C: Partition1 <New Volume> [NTFS] 78532 MB <78465 MB free>


Do I highlight C: to set up XP there? Sorry but I don't understand why it's showing D: also. Can someone explain. Thanks very much.

 

[aford10]

D is showing, because you set up a partition, either when connected to the other PC, or a while back.

You can delete both partitions. It will show as all unallocated space. Then you'll choose to set up an installation on that unallocated space. It will then format that unallocated space, assign it as the C: drive, and install windows.

 

[ckmckee]

Okay, I deleted both partitions and created one partition which shows up as C: drive. It then formatted the drive and continued through the XP Pro installation process. I am now at the stage where it wants a product key.

There is no Windows sticker on this custom built pc (built in 2003). I ran Belarc Advisor prior to the melt down and under "Software Licenses" it shows Windows XP Professional and gives a 25-digit key. I put that key into the screen that asks for it but it says "The product ID you entered is not valid".

I don't understand why it is not accepting the key. Can anyone help? Thank you

 

[ckmckee]

I think I know what the problem is. The cd I used to install XP Pro is a retail version, and the product key I'm trying to type is most likely an OEM version. Oy vay! Is there somewhere I can go to purchase an OEM XP Pro cd? Or a retail version XP Pro product key?

 

[aford10]

You may need to contact Microsoft for the activation assistance. There's only so many activations per key before you have to explain why you're activating it. If you call the local phone activation number, it's an automated line.

 

[aford10]

Yes, you can still purchase XP. However, the price isn't much less than a new copy of Windows 7. If you were going to buy a license for XP, you might as well upgrade to Windows 7.

 

[ckmckee]

I do have an OEM XP Home cd with and OEM product key I'm not using. Would I be able to install that over XP Pro ?

 

[aford10]

The problem with those, is they are tied to the original hardware they are installed with. Once they are installed and activated, OEM licenses don't work with other hardware.

 

[ckmckee]

Bummer! Okay XP Pro finished installing and was loading, I saw the XP logo on the screen, then the screen went black. I wiggled the mouse and keyboard in case it went to sleep but it made no difference. The pc is on and running as I can hear the power supply and fans loud and clear. Connection the monitor cable is not loose. Did my video card just go out?

 

[aford10]

Not likely. If you were getting a display on startup, and it just cut out when windows started to load, it's likely something else.

Try restarting. If you can see the BIOS load, your video card is putting out a signal. Your monitor refresh rate may be out of range.

Try booting into safe mode. If you get display there, you may need to change the refresh rate.

 

[ckmckee]

I restarted pc and saw BIOS on the starting up screen, then I selected F8 and went into Safe Mode. Went to display and looked at Refresh rate. Default was the only choice available.

Went ahead and loaded up XP Pro and it was at the startup screen (the XP logo was there) when the screen went dark again. A message appeared on the screen that said something like this: "autodetect analog output, etc"...(I could not read the rest of message b4 it disappeared) ." Then the LED light on monitor went from blue to yellow. What do you make of this? Thanks so much for all your help!