Topic: Need help with Athlon XP3000+ 64 PC Please (Won't boot up)

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Hi,

It's been playing up for a while. There are 3 main users for this PC & we each log on via our own passwords when it boots up. But recently, if I wanted to log off so another user can log on it seems to "jam up" as soon as the new user logs on & the time sand thing just keeps spinning & nothing happens. The way around it we found was to reset the PC every time someone else wants to use the computer. Bit of a pain & time consuming :roll:

Then, a few weeks ago the PC just stopped working alltogether & we got an engineer out from Evesham Computers (the manufacture) who said it was due to static build up. I wasn't there, but he showed my Dad how to pull something out, move it up a few slots for a couple of seconds then replace it. Sure enough the PC worked again - but only in the same was as before with us having to reset if we wanted to change users.

Now, its stopped working again :evil:  My Dad did what the engineer told him but it's not working. When I turn the PC on I get first a "MSI CORE CELL" screen, then a page with the usual black & white text & then XP trys to work but as soon as it gets to the blue screen where we'd normally log on goes back to black & white & it just says "BIOS NOT INSTALLED - INSERT BOOT DISK".

I've pressed "Delete" & got into the bios & checked the settings as best I can (I'm not very clued up anyway as you can tell) & it seems it was set to boot from the floppy, then the two sony CD/RW & DVD drives then something about REAL TEK.

I'm confused!

[Sandra]

Ok lets get the pc booting first and then we can see if we can sort the log off user thing later  

It sounds like he showed your dad how to reset the CMOS.
Its normally just moving a jumper from one position to the next.
There are 3 pins, connecting the centre and one end is the Normal Run position while connecting the centre and the pin at the opposite end is the Clear CMOS position.
I suspect that your dad hasnt set the jumper back in the run position correctly, thats why its giving you the message that the BIOS isnt installed.

What this has to do with static build up I havent a clue, sounds like he didnt know himself and was trying to confuse your dad with techno babble.
If you have an earth in your pc mains lead, unless its a laptop I have never seen one that didnt in the UK, then you cant get static build up as it would discharge through the earth  :roll:

Anyway check the jumper, if your dad is not home now its usually but not always near to the CMOS battery, just check thats its connecting the centre and end pins correctly and if its still giving the bios not installed message set it in the other position and I think you will find that it will be ok again  

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Thanks for your help Sandra. However, insted of waiting like I asked him too he went ahead & called Evesham Computers. Wiped the HDD so were back to square one. I've lost loads & loads of work & he's lost all his accounts :roll:  If only he'd of waited eh?

Thanks again anyhow :wink:

[Sandra]

Sorry to hear that.
There are data recovery programs that sometimes work ok but depending on what they have actually done to the drive it may be irrecoverable  

If you have a second partition or better still a second hard drive as a slave to the main drive then its always a good idea to save any important stuff to that so that the partition or drive that has the operating system on can be wiped without losing data.