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#1
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Hi All,
Please could someone help with a problem I have. I have an Windows XP machine and recently was attempting to create a slide-show for XMas. Suddenly I lost all photos the screen went blank. I had to reboot the machine but when it powered up the only showing was all "Gobly-Gook". All attempts to rectify the problem were in vein. I replaced the video card with another one from my previous computer. It now shows the BIOS etc ok but stops after loading the memory and BIOS programs with a blanking cursor on the top left of the screen. I have attempted to boot with a windows 98 boot disk this did not work. Appreciate any comments on how to resolve this problem. Regards. -- Flinty |
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#2
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Peter F wrote:
Hi All, Please could someone help with a problem I have. I have an Windows XP machine and recently was attempting to create a slide-show for XMas. Suddenly I lost all photos the screen went blank. I had to reboot the machine but when it powered up the only showing was all "Gobly-Gook". All attempts to rectify the problem were in vein. I replaced the video card with another one from my previous computer. It now shows the BIOS etc ok but stops after loading the memory and BIOS programs with a blanking cursor on the top left of the screen. I have attempted to boot with a windows 98 boot disk this did not work. Appreciate any comments on how to resolve this problem. Regards. What kind of computer is it (make and model) ? I'm just curious as to whether it has a Bestec 250W power supply, such as ATX-250-12E or something similar. It almost sounds to me, like the computer cannot access the hard drive. Maybe the hard drive was damaged by the same event that did something to the video card ? I'm asking about the power supply, to see if it might have killed something. If this was my problem, I'd pull the hard drive from the computer with the blinking cursor, and slave it to a working computer. I'd record the jumper position used on the drive (could be Cable Select), and then change the jumper position, to something suitable for adding the drive to another working computer. For IDE, you need to understand how jumpering works, to make a successful transplant. An alternative, is to get a USB to IDE adapter or USB 3.5" enclosure, and slave up the hard drive that way. I prefer the more direct approach, of just putting the drive inside the other computer. So there are a few different ways of connecting a hard drive to another computer. Once the drive is in the other computer, you can either attempt to access it from Windows. Or, depending on the brand, run the disk manufacturer diagnostic. For example, for Seagate drives, you could download SeaTools for DOS (floppy or CD versions). Then boot the working computer with that diagnostic, and run a check on the questionable hard drive. If you could manage to boot the affected computer with something, that would also be an alternative. You could make the Seatools for DOS floppy or CD, and try to boot the affected computer with that. But if you can't convince the computer to boot (it gets stuck trying to access that hard drive), then moving the hard drive to another computer, may allow you to inspect its condition. Paul |
#3
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Peter F wrote:
Hi All, Please could someone help with a problem I have. I have an Windows XP machine and recently was attempting to create a slide-show for XMas. Suddenly I lost all photos the screen went blank. I had to reboot the machine but when it powered up the only showing was all "Gobly-Gook". All attempts to rectify the problem were in vein. I replaced the video card with another one from my previous computer. It now shows the BIOS etc ok but stops after loading the memory and BIOS programs with a blanking cursor on the top left of the screen. I have attempted to boot with a windows 98 boot disk this did not work. Appreciate any comments on how to resolve this problem. Regards. What kind of computer is it (make and model) ? I'm just curious as to whether it has a Bestec 250W power supply, such as ATX-250-12E or something similar. It almost sounds to me, like the computer cannot access the hard drive. Maybe the hard drive was damaged by the same event that did something to the video card ? I'm asking about the power supply, to see if it might have killed something. If this was my problem, I'd pull the hard drive from the computer with the blinking cursor, and slave it to a working computer. I'd record the jumper position used on the drive (could be Cable Select), and then change the jumper position, to something suitable for adding the drive to another working computer. For IDE, you need to understand how jumpering works, to make a successful transplant. An alternative, is to get a USB to IDE adapter or USB 3.5" enclosure, and slave up the hard drive that way. I prefer the more direct approach, of just putting the drive inside the other computer. So there are a few different ways of connecting a hard drive to another computer. Once the drive is in the other computer, you can either attempt to access it from Windows. Or, depending on the brand, run the disk manufacturer diagnostic. For example, for Seagate drives, you could download SeaTools for DOS (floppy or CD versions). Then boot the working computer with that diagnostic, and run a check on the questionable hard drive. If you could manage to boot the affected computer with something, that would also be an alternative. You could make the Seatools for DOS floppy or CD, and try to boot the affected computer with that. But if you can't convince the computer to boot (it gets stuck trying to access that hard drive), then moving the hard drive to another computer, may allow you to inspect its condition. Paul |
#4
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If it won't boot from anything, the motherboard was likely damaged also.
Peter F wrote: Hi All, Please could someone help with a problem I have. I have an Windows XP machine and recently was attempting to create a slide-show for XMas. Suddenly I lost all photos the screen went blank. I had to reboot the machine but when it powered up the only showing was all "Gobly-Gook". All attempts to rectify the problem were in vein. I replaced the video card with another one from my previous computer. It now shows the BIOS etc ok but stops after loading the memory and BIOS programs with a blanking cursor on the top left of the screen. I have attempted to boot with a windows 98 boot disk this did not work. Appreciate any comments on how to resolve this problem. Regards. |
#5
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Blinking cursor
If it won't boot from anything, the motherboard was likely damaged also.
Peter F wrote: Hi All, Please could someone help with a problem I have. I have an Windows XP machine and recently was attempting to create a slide-show for XMas. Suddenly I lost all photos the screen went blank. I had to reboot the machine but when it powered up the only showing was all "Gobly-Gook". All attempts to rectify the problem were in vein. I replaced the video card with another one from my previous computer. It now shows the BIOS etc ok but stops after loading the memory and BIOS programs with a blanking cursor on the top left of the screen. I have attempted to boot with a windows 98 boot disk this did not work. Appreciate any comments on how to resolve this problem. Regards. |
#6
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Peter F wrote:
Hi All, Please could someone help with a problem I have. I have an Windows XP machine and recently was attempting to create a slide-show for XMas. Suddenly I lost all photos the screen went blank. I had to reboot the machine but when it powered up the only showing was all "Gobly-Gook". All attempts to rectify the problem were in vein. I replaced the video card with another one from my previous computer. It now shows the BIOS etc ok but stops after loading the memory and BIOS programs with a blanking cursor on the top left of the screen. I have attempted to boot with a windows 98 boot disk this did not work. Appreciate any comments on how to resolve this problem. Did you set the boot option in the BIOS so that the diskette drive would be at the top of the booting order? Booting to a blinking cursor on the upper left screen usually indicates that the MBR code cannot find an active partition, the suggested fix would usually be to boot with a Windows 98 startup diskette and use FDISK to verify and set the active flag on the system partition. If you can't boot with a floppy diskette or a bootable CD-ROM them there is more to this than just the hard drive. John |
#7
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Peter F wrote:
Hi All, Please could someone help with a problem I have. I have an Windows XP machine and recently was attempting to create a slide-show for XMas. Suddenly I lost all photos the screen went blank. I had to reboot the machine but when it powered up the only showing was all "Gobly-Gook". All attempts to rectify the problem were in vein. I replaced the video card with another one from my previous computer. It now shows the BIOS etc ok but stops after loading the memory and BIOS programs with a blanking cursor on the top left of the screen. I have attempted to boot with a windows 98 boot disk this did not work. Appreciate any comments on how to resolve this problem. Did you set the boot option in the BIOS so that the diskette drive would be at the top of the booting order? Booting to a blinking cursor on the upper left screen usually indicates that the MBR code cannot find an active partition, the suggested fix would usually be to boot with a Windows 98 startup diskette and use FDISK to verify and set the active flag on the system partition. If you can't boot with a floppy diskette or a bootable CD-ROM them there is more to this than just the hard drive. John |
#8
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Peter F wrote:
Hi All, Please could someone help with a problem I have. I have an Windows XP machine and recently was attempting to create a slide-show for XMas. Suddenly I lost all photos the screen went blank. I had to reboot the machine but when it powered up the only showing was all "Gobly-Gook". All attempts to rectify the problem were in vein. I replaced the video card with another one from my previous computer. It now shows the BIOS etc ok but stops after loading the memory and BIOS programs with a blanking cursor on the top left of the screen. I have attempted to boot with a windows 98 boot disk this did not work. Appreciate any comments on how to resolve this problem. Regards. Looks like your original video card was bad...and if so you did the right thing when you replaced it. It looks like the system is "hanging" as it's trying to load the drivers for your old card... So right after the bios messages hit F8 and see if you can get to safe mode... If so...uninstall your video adaptor in the control panel reboot and let windows reinstall it. If it comes up as "generic vga" you will need to install the drivers for that specific card. |
#9
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Peter F wrote:
Hi All, Please could someone help with a problem I have. I have an Windows XP machine and recently was attempting to create a slide-show for XMas. Suddenly I lost all photos the screen went blank. I had to reboot the machine but when it powered up the only showing was all "Gobly-Gook". All attempts to rectify the problem were in vein. I replaced the video card with another one from my previous computer. It now shows the BIOS etc ok but stops after loading the memory and BIOS programs with a blanking cursor on the top left of the screen. I have attempted to boot with a windows 98 boot disk this did not work. Appreciate any comments on how to resolve this problem. Regards. Looks like your original video card was bad...and if so you did the right thing when you replaced it. It looks like the system is "hanging" as it's trying to load the drivers for your old card... So right after the bios messages hit F8 and see if you can get to safe mode... If so...uninstall your video adaptor in the control panel reboot and let windows reinstall it. If it comes up as "generic vga" you will need to install the drivers for that specific card. |
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