Maybe over my head?

  • Thread starter Thread starter mjm4u
  • Start date Start date
M

mjm4u

:x
A friend brought me over her computer last week--told me it just
"stopped"--appears to be an old Gateway 2000--when I turned it on,
got a message stating invalid system disk, remove--of course, there's
no disk inside, so I'm assuming perhaps a hard drive
situation--unplugged the drive so that a Win98 startup floppy would
take over the booting, which it did, but when I tried to run fdisk, I
get a message stating no fixed disks present--rebooted the system with
the same error message, tried running delpart and got "no hard drive
found"--does it sound like she's screwed and needs a new hard drive
to anyone else?

Thanks,
Mike
 
mjm4u said:
:x
A friend brought me over her computer last week--told me it just
"stopped"--appears to be an old Gateway 2000--when I turned it on,
got a message stating invalid system disk, remove--of course, there's
no disk inside, so I'm assuming perhaps a hard drive
situation--unplugged the drive so that a Win98 startup floppy would
take over the booting, which it did, but when I tried to run fdisk, I
get a message stating no fixed disks present--rebooted the system with
the same error message, tried running delpart and got "no hard drive
found"--does it sound like she's screwed and needs a new hard drive
to anyone else?
Click to expand...

It sounds like it, but before you do replace it check the hard disk
connectors. Make sure the leads are pushed in properly and haven't
worked loose. You need to make sure you are earthed (touch the case
and have the PSU plugged in, but not switched on) when you do it to
avoid any anti-static discharge problems.
 
mjm4u said:
A friend brought me over her computer last week--told me it just
"stopped"--appears to be an old Gateway 2000--when I turned it on,
got a message stating invalid system disk, remove--of course, there's
no disk inside, so I'm assuming perhaps a hard drive
situation--unplugged the drive so that a Win98 startup floppy would
take over the booting
Click to expand...

Did you plug the drive back in again when you were running Fdisk?
 
mjm4u said:
:x
A friend brought me over her computer last week--told me it just
"stopped"--appears to be an old Gateway 2000--when I turned it on,
got a message stating invalid system disk, remove--of course, there's
no disk inside, so I'm assuming perhaps a hard drive
situation--unplugged the drive so that a Win98 startup floppy would
take over the booting, which it did, but when I tried to run fdisk, I
get a message stating no fixed disks present--rebooted the system with
the same error message, tried running delpart and got "no hard drive
found"--does it sound like she's screwed and needs a new hard drive
to anyone else?

Thanks,
Mike
Click to expand...
Hard drive controller turned off in BIOS?

SteveH
 
hen I turned it on,
got a message stating invalid system disk, remove--of course, there's
no disk inside, so I'm assuming perhaps a hard drive
situation--

huh? no disk inside.. that would be a hard drive problem alright. there is
none?
 
mjm4u said:
:x
A friend brought me over her computer last week--told me it just
"stopped"--appears to be an old Gateway 2000--when I turned it on,
got a message stating invalid system disk, remove--of course, there's
no disk inside, so I'm assuming perhaps a hard drive
situation--unplugged the drive so that a Win98 startup floppy would
take over the booting, which it did, but when I tried to run fdisk, I
get a message stating no fixed disks present--rebooted the system with
the same error message, tried running delpart and got "no hard drive
found"--does it sound like she's screwed and needs a new hard drive
to anyone else?

Thanks,
Mike
Click to expand...

That's a classic symptom of a dead CMOS battery. When the battery dies, the
CMOS loses the hard drive settings (among other things). Replace CMOS
battery, auto-detect hard drive (hopefully you won't have to manually
program it), save settings, exit, done. -Dave
 
let me see if I can answer all responses--JAD, I meant no floppy disks
in the computer, there is a hard drive in there---Cowboyz---the hard
drive was plugged in when I tried fdisk---Steve--the hard drive
controller is turned on in BIOS, and Guest---all connectors have been
unplugged and reseated

Thanks for the responses--still looking for more

Mike
 
mjm4u said:
Dave--wouldn't it lose the time in the BIOS if the battery was dead?

Mike
Click to expand...

Possibly. Some mainboards have CMOS and real time clock in the same chip,
and the RTC runs off battery. So, a slow clock can be a symptom of a weak
battery. But a clock keeping time doesn't necessarily mean that the CMOS
battery is OK. :) -Dave
 
That Gateway 2000 is so bad out of date that it is
not worth anything. I'm sure the hard drive has failed,
and I'm pretty sure it is the original 10 gig. It has
probably got all of 128 meg of ram in it ( if that ), and
I would be more than surprised to fine that the video
monitor still works. Every single one of them has gone
up in smoke, and Gateway never did work on them.
Tell her not to waste money on repairs of any kind.
Just junk it.

johns
 
Dave said:
Possibly. Some mainboards have CMOS and real time clock in the same chip,
and the RTC runs off battery. So, a slow clock can be a symptom of a weak
battery. But a clock keeping time doesn't necessarily mean that the CMOS
battery is OK. :) -Dave
Click to expand...

But I haven't seen one with two batteries and if the clock has power to run
then the CMOS will to, especially since it takes more voltage for the clock
to operate than for CMOS to retain data.
 
mjm4u said:
let me see if I can answer all responses--JAD, I meant no floppy disks
in the computer, there is a hard drive in there---Cowboyz---the hard
drive was plugged in when I tried fdisk---Steve--the hard drive
controller is turned on in BIOS, and Guest---all connectors have been
unplugged and reseated

Thanks for the responses--still looking for more

Mike
Click to expand...

Have you tried putting the hard drive in a different computer? If it
works in a different computer then you know the problem is elsewhere.
If the hard drive doesn't work in a different computer then you know
the hard drive is broken.
 
Back
Top