Desperately needing help

sy64004

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Joined
2 Feb 2004
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119
If any one can help with this problem it would be greatly appreciated:

I have my main hard drive (HD1) with 2 partitions, 1 with data and progs the second with my documents. Yesterday I decided that I needed to backup my documents onto a spare hard drive (HD2). unfortunately this had 2 partitions in the same set up as HD1. So what I did was go into disk manager and delete the second partition and then when I went to delete the first partition it came up with a warning that this had a windows installation on and did I want to continue, I clicked yes.

I backed all my data up, closed down my comp and disconnected HD2 so my comp was back to the original configuration. When I booted up I had a rapid succesion of beeps after the "Verifying DMI pool" and when XP loaded I had no right click menu.

I figured that if I did a reformat and reinstall it would all come good only it didn't. After the format I tried booting from the CD to install XP only the message "NTLDR Missing" came up.

I copied this file from the XP CD and that was OK but I was still getting the rapid beeps. When I tried to install XP it loaded all the drivers but then went straight to the recovery console. It does this everytime I have tried to install XP.

I reformated to FAT32 and managed to install Win 98 but again it goes to the console if i try to install XP. I try to upgrade or install from Win 98 and it says my Serial is invalid.

I have tried:
flash my BIOS
insert a 3rd hard drive and install from that, still no joy.


Even with Windows 98 I still get the rapdid beeps from the system speaker. I have also just noticed while typing this out that the right shift key isn't working to for the letter p either.

I know this is the holiday period so there may not be many people on the board but if any one can help I'd be really greatful

Thanks in advance
 
Sorry to hear your having problems. I think your approching your problem a little chaotic though. The best thing to do would be to start from scratch, and assume everything is messed up.

So with that mindset, open up that comp, remove everything. RAM, HDD's, PCI cards. I would leave the processor and heatsink alone unless you have thermal compound. While you got everything out, might want to take a moment and do a little winter cleaning.

Now, put in only the RAM, Video card (if applicable), and 1 HDD. Reset your bios (usually done by shorting out 2 pins on the mobo, check your mobo documentation for more info).

Now while your comp will most likely NOT boot, still power it up and let it go as far as it will. This is to make sure everything is connected correctly. Then if everything seems correct. power down, (if there is no OS on the HDD you installed ) insert your WinXP CD and power back up. Proceed through the prompts to do a clean install. (WARNING* This will format the hdd and all data will be lost!!!!) Go through the normal install. This should resolve your problem.

Now I can hear you saying "Ahhh dude, I already tried doing an install", ahh yes, but did you remove all your components, clear your bios, and try to re-install?

After your sucessful OS install, you can start adding in the rest of your hardware, 1 item at a time, till all compontents are installed and working. Then you will need to update your bios (if needed), or tweak to your preferences. But do not do that untill all hardware is installed and functioning (unless the bios changes are required to make hardware work).

Good Luck
 
sy64004 said:
I reformated to FAT32 and managed to install Win 98 but again it goes to the console if i try to install XP. I try to upgrade or install from Win 98 and it says my Serial is invalid.

Your CDKey is invalid becuse you don't have a upgrade CDKey, its a full install CDKey.
 
Hey Maveric, just tried taking everything out and wiping the CMOS. when I rebooted it gave me the option to carry on loading the previous os or continue with setup/ repair of XP.

I reckon i'm going to have to reformat my HD and do that all over again, does that sound about right???
 
Well you can do it either way but the best would be to do a clean format and re-install. You could try to repair XP or even intall it ontop it's self. However that can cause problems but I have done it in the past with no problems.
 
Thanks for the tips Maveric however I'm having no luck with it. the only thing I can think of is to try and get hold of serial number for the update and try and do an update over the win 98 installation I've got. As soon as that has completed I could then do a clean install using my proper serial number so that everything is above board.

If any one else has any suggestions I'm all ears. This is ticking me off beyond belief!!
 
I have absoloutly no idea how or waht I did but I'm back up and running again, without the beeps!!

Thanks Maveric for your assistance!!
 
Ok spooky...... I was going to suggest this if it happens again, use the win98 Cd to format your machine, it formats it to fat32 through the dos prompts, i've had loads of problems trying to format using XP, i only use 98 to format my pc now. I would never suggest installing xp over itself, always best to totally format and then reinstall, although what maverick said was on the money, always best to start from the beginning if at the end its still messes up.
 
sy64004 said:
I have absoloutly no idea how or waht I did but I'm back up and running again, without the beeps!!

Thanks Maveric for your assistance!!
Glad to hear your back up and running. One thing that you might do at some point is change your CMOS battery. The CMOS battery should not cause problems that you experienced, BUT, I have had tons of totaly off the wall non related things go screwy that simply disappeared after I changed the CMOS battery. Seeing as all of suddened things just started work maybe the beeps were tying to tell you the battery is low? I am just guessing here.

Quick note, if you do decide to change the battery use a volt meter and check the battery first. I have had 3 brand new ones that were nearly dead.
 
Thanks for advice Maveric, i'll do that sometime.

Yeah Lancer I got 98 on and took it from there. XP can be a real head scratcher when booting into it for a fresh install!! thanks for the ideas
 
sy64004, now that it's too late. My guess is when you put the second Windows Boot HD2 in to make your back up Windows deactivated the HD1 as a Boot drive and started booting from HD2. Then you wiped the Windows partition on HD2 and were left with no Boot HD.

I have had Windows do this to me when I booted with 2 Boot HD partitions and the only way I sorted it out was to do a Track 0 repair of the HD1.

I have no idea what the details are of what is happening and no one has been able to explain it but:

The bottom line is now I NEVER Install 2 Boot HD's in the PC and run windows. I boot from the WD utility disk (floppy or CD) to do image backups then remove the backup drive before rebooting into windows.
 

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Also Hi EP and people. I found this place again while looking through a oooollllllldddd backup. I have filled over 10TB and was looking at my collection of antiques. Any bids on the 500Mhz Win 95 fix?
Any of the SP crew still out there?
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Just did some crude math and I apparently joined almost 18yrs ago, how is that possible???
hello peeps... is been some time since i last came here.
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