Solve : Bizarre problem?

1.	Solve : Bizarre problem?
Answer» Ok, so I've recently built a gaming system completely from scratch so I could play bioshock and my system works fine, so i have some knowledge of hardware... but... I was at j-b hifi with my girlfriend and her sisters when one of them said she wanted a dvd burner in their COMPUTER. I said no problem, as I know how to plug in the ide and power cords (It was LG, if that matters...). We got it back to their place and I proceeded to open their computer, remove their old cd-rom and plug the old one in with the same cords. I closed the box back up, plugged everything back in and turned it on. It ran through the bios and stuff and came up with an error along the lines of "Insert boot disk and press any KEY to continue" I thought "ok, maybe i need to set the hard disk to the drive that the computer has to run off in the bios. Did that and now the computer would shut down as soon as the windows xp loading screen was finished. At this point I started to panic. so I plugged the old cd-rom back in. Still got the same problem. At this point I gave up for the night. Having built a new computer recently, I had my old pc tower sitting in my room, minus a hard-drive so I figured if all else failed, i'd plug their old hard-drive into my computer and they could use that until i worked out what was wrong. I tried switched the cords around in their old box a bit, but it made no difference, so I plugged their hard-drive in to my old computer and bizarrely, I still got the same problem. PLEASE! PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE! HELP ME regain my honour. -TomSomething tells me it may not be the drive. Did you notice any static shock while you were installing the new drive? Quote I tried switched the cords around in their old box a bit, but it made no difference im thinking it would be the hard drive... because it was this same hd that youput into your old computer right? if you can find another hd(maybe from your recnet build) and try it in their computer. post back!tvellalott, No mention of whether the "new burner drive" was replacing a one and only drive which was removed. Was there more than one drive in it? If so were the jumper pins set to the PROPER configuration.If it replaced a slave drive then the new one would also have to be set to slave. Generally my experience is that new drives are usually sold with the pins set to master so if it was replacing a one of then this would not normally have created your problem. Did you connect the ide cable to the new drive at the same position on the cable as it was connected to the one you removed?truenorththe problem that your having is the OS is corrupt. You need to re-install the XP Quote from: mr_skipper24 on March 09, 2008, 12:17:43 PM the problem that your having is the OS is corrupt. You need to re-install the XP how do you know this? it is much too early to come to that conclusion. Quote Having built a new computer recently, I had my old pc tower sitting in my room, minus a hard-drive so I figured if all else failed, i'd plug their old hard-drive into my computer and they could use that until i worked out what was wrong. you cannot simply remove a harddrive from one computer and place it in another and expect it to work. these changes you made in the computer, was the power off? not off like you pushed the power button, but off as in you unplugged it. i suggest popping out the CMOS battery and leaving it out for about 10mins. make sure the system is unplugged before doing this! after ~10mins. reinsert it. plug the comp back in. boot the comp up. access the BIOS. does the dvd burner appear in the BIOS? does the harddrive appear in the BIOS? next go to boot priority or boot sequence, whichever one your BIOS uses, then make sure your harddrive boots first, then WHATEVER other components you have you can set to boot in any order.I grounded myself before playing with the bits. I should mention that I've always been confused with the whole master/slave thing, do you have to physically change something on the drives or is it completely in the software of the computer. The old computer only had the one cd-rom drive, a floppy disk and the hdd. The power was completely unplugged, no cord was plugged into the mb or power supply. Now that you mention it, when I looked in the bios, i noticed that it only said "Hard Drive", "CD-ROM" & "Floppy Disk" instead of Sony32-16x or whatever it usually says... Quote from: tvellalott on March 09, 2008, 03:10:25 PM I should mention that I've always been confused with the whole master/slave thing, do you have to physically change something on the drives or is it completely in the software of the computer. They are called jumpers. There will be a label on the drive showing where the jumper or jumpers need to go to make the drive a master or a slave. Generally, if you have 1 hard drive and 1 cd/dvd drive you will have two IDE ribbon cables plugged into the motherboard. On one cable will be the hard drive, set as master, and on the other cable will be the CD/DVD drive also set as master. You could possibly have just one IDE cable with the hard drive set as master and the CD/DVD drive set as slave, but this may not be good for performance. yes, tv, I think you answered your own question! It's that whole master/slave thing -- see how the jumper was set for the CD-ROM you removed -- hopefully, there will be something on the drive itself...then you can match the setting for the replacement drive.tvellalott, do as i suggested earlier and see if that clears the problem. Quote i suggest popping out the CMOS battery and leaving it out for about 10mins. make sure the system is unplugged before doing this! after ~10mins. reinsert it. plug the comp back in. boot the comp up. access the BIOS. does the dvd burner appear in the BIOS? does the harddrive appear in the BIOS? next go to boot priority or boot sequence, whichever one your BIOS uses, then make sure your harddrive boots first, then whatever other components you have you can set to boot in any order. As some of the others suggested you need to check the jumpers on the new dvd burner to make sure they are set the same as the old cd rom. If the rom is master so should the dvd burner(assuming you install in the same postion as the rom was). It should have been as easy as falling off a log. gregOk, update. I set the jumper to slave on the new dvd drive and reset the bios. It recognises the two drives as slave and master, as their names come up in the bios, however the computer is still turning off for no reason. It isn't turning off at any particular point, just randomly and quite quickly. I tried plugging in the two drives with different power cords but same problems. Helpis it perhaps overheating? is the CPU fan spinning? is the heatsink free of dust?Hey i just put together a computer and i used my old hard drive with OS and i went to load the drivers for the cpu and it will only go to the slecting for safe MODE ect and it will ust restart from there and run in a circle can you please help

Answer»

Ok, so I've recently built a gaming system completely from scratch so I could play bioshock and my system works fine, so i have some knowledge of hardware... but...

I was at j-b hifi with my girlfriend and her sisters when one of them said she wanted a dvd burner in their COMPUTER. I said no problem, as I know how to plug in the ide and power cords (It was LG, if that matters...). We got it back to their place and I proceeded to open their computer, remove their old cd-rom and plug the old one in with the same cords.
I closed the box back up, plugged everything back in and turned it on.
It ran through the bios and stuff and came up with an error along the lines of "Insert boot disk and press any KEY to continue"
I thought "ok, maybe i need to set the hard disk to the drive that the computer has to run off in the bios.
Did that and now the computer would shut down as soon as the windows xp loading screen was finished.
At this point I started to panic. so I plugged the old cd-rom back in.
Still got the same problem.
At this point I gave up for the night.

Having built a new computer recently, I had my old pc tower sitting in my room, minus a hard-drive so I figured if all else failed, i'd plug their old hard-drive into my computer and they could use that until i worked out what was wrong.
I tried switched the cords around in their old box a bit, but it made no difference, so I plugged their hard-drive in to my old computer and bizarrely, I still got the same problem.
PLEASE! PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE! HELP ME regain my honour.
-TomSomething tells me it may not be the drive. Did you notice any static shock while you were installing the new drive?
Quote

I tried switched the cords around in their old box a bit, but it made no difference

im thinking it would be the hard drive...
because it was this same hd that youput into your old computer right?
if you can find another hd(maybe from your recnet build) and try it in their computer.
post back!tvellalott, No mention of whether the "new burner drive" was replacing a one and only drive which was removed. Was there more than one drive in it? If so were the jumper pins set to the PROPER configuration.If it replaced a slave drive then the new one would also have to be set to slave. Generally my experience is that new drives are usually sold with the pins set to master so if it was replacing a one of then this would not normally have created your problem. Did you connect the ide cable to the new drive at the same position on the cable as it was connected to the one you removed?truenorththe problem that your having is the OS is corrupt. You need to re-install the XP Quote from: mr_skipper24 on March 09, 2008, 12:17:43 PM

the problem that your having is the OS is corrupt. You need to re-install the XP

how do you know this? it is much too early to come to that conclusion.

Quote

Having built a new computer recently, I had my old pc tower sitting in my room, minus a hard-drive so I figured if all else failed, i'd plug their old hard-drive into my computer and they could use that until i worked out what was wrong.

you cannot simply remove a harddrive from one computer and place it in another and expect it to work.

these changes you made in the computer, was the power off? not off like you pushed the power button, but off as in you unplugged it.

i suggest popping out the CMOS battery and leaving it out for about 10mins. make sure the system is unplugged before doing this! after ~10mins. reinsert it. plug the comp back in. boot the comp up. access the BIOS. does the dvd burner appear in the BIOS? does the harddrive appear in the BIOS? next go to boot priority or boot sequence, whichever one your BIOS uses, then make sure your harddrive boots first, then WHATEVER other components you have you can set to boot in any order.I grounded myself before playing with the bits.
I should mention that I've always been confused with the whole master/slave thing, do you have to physically change something on the drives or is it completely in the software of the computer.
The old computer only had the one cd-rom drive, a floppy disk and the hdd.
The power was completely unplugged, no cord was plugged into the mb or power supply.
Now that you mention it, when I looked in the bios, i noticed that it only said "Hard Drive", "CD-ROM" & "Floppy Disk" instead of Sony32-16x or whatever it usually says... Quote from: tvellalott on March 09, 2008, 03:10:25 PM

I should mention that I've always been confused with the whole master/slave thing, do you have to physically change something on the drives or is it completely in the software of the computer.

They are called jumpers.

There will be a label on the drive showing where the jumper or jumpers need to go to make the drive a master or a slave.

Generally, if you have 1 hard drive and 1 cd/dvd drive you will have two IDE ribbon cables plugged into the motherboard. On one cable will be the hard drive, set as master, and on the other cable will be the CD/DVD drive also set as master.

You could possibly have just one IDE cable with the hard drive set as master and the CD/DVD drive set as slave, but this may not be good for performance.

yes, tv, I think you answered your own question!

It's that whole master/slave thing -- see how the jumper was set for the CD-ROM you removed -- hopefully, there will be something on the drive itself...then you can match the setting for the replacement drive.tvellalott, do as i suggested earlier and see if that clears the problem.
Quote

i suggest popping out the CMOS battery and leaving it out for about 10mins. make sure the system is unplugged before doing this! after ~10mins. reinsert it. plug the comp back in. boot the comp up. access the BIOS. does the dvd burner appear in the BIOS? does the harddrive appear in the BIOS? next go to boot priority or boot sequence, whichever one your BIOS uses, then make sure your harddrive boots first, then whatever other components you have you can set to boot in any order.

As some of the others suggested you need to check the jumpers on the new dvd burner to make sure they are set the same as the old cd rom.
If the rom is master so should the dvd burner(assuming you install in the same postion as the rom was).
It should have been as easy as falling off a log.

gregOk, update.
I set the jumper to slave on the new dvd drive and reset the bios. It recognises the two drives as slave and master, as their names come up in the bios, however the computer is still turning off for no reason.
It isn't turning off at any particular point, just randomly and quite quickly. I tried plugging in the two drives with different power cords but same problems.
Helpis it perhaps overheating? is the CPU fan spinning? is the heatsink free of dust?Hey i just put together a computer and i used my old hard drive with OS and i went to load the drivers for the cpu and it will only go to the slecting for safe MODE ect and it will ust restart from there and run in a circle can you please help

Solve : Bizarre problem?

Discussion

No Comment Found

Related InterviewSolutions

Reply to Comment