I'm helping troubleshoot a desktop. Specs are:
Soyo Dragon Mobo
AMD XP+1900
512mb Corsair RAM
100gb Seagate 7200RPM
250mb Zip
48x CD-RW
16x DVD
Floppy, ETC.
I know not everything I posted may be needed, but just in case...
I helped build this system about 8 months ago for a Doctor who works with my wife... He is the type that knows a little about computers and therefore is dangerous. To make a long story short, in the last 8 months he has reloaded winxp probably 5 times because he messes with it to a point that it won't boot. (Just a bit of background info)
The problem:
He dropped the computer off to me a few days ago and I really just got time yesterday to mess with it... The entire case was 1 big dustball... The heatsink fins were completely covered with dust to a point where the fan wasn't cooling the system at all. At 1st I was worried that he had fried the processor, but there is no visible scarring on the CPU surface (I know this doesn't mean the CPU isn't damaged). I replaced the heatsink and fan w/ a new AMD approved Antec setup he purchased and I can get further into the boot process, but now when I boot to the WinXP CD and try to 'repair' the current install, I get a HDD error. I loaded a Win98SE boot disk and ran fdisk to check on the partitions, but the 100GB drive is only being recognized as a 30GB. The previous FAT was FAT32, not NTFS so I figured I wouldn't have a problem recognizing the format... Sidenote: he did have 5 partitions on the HDD (I read somewhere that 4 or more partitions can cause trouble).
Without trying to boot to the CD, I'd get 1/2 way into the boot process and the machine would restart.
In the BIOS, the CPU temp is 44C.
Sorry for being longwinded, but I figured I'd offer more than less information.
psmit13
Soyo Dragon Mobo
AMD XP+1900
512mb Corsair RAM
100gb Seagate 7200RPM
250mb Zip
48x CD-RW
16x DVD
Floppy, ETC.
I know not everything I posted may be needed, but just in case...
I helped build this system about 8 months ago for a Doctor who works with my wife... He is the type that knows a little about computers and therefore is dangerous. To make a long story short, in the last 8 months he has reloaded winxp probably 5 times because he messes with it to a point that it won't boot. (Just a bit of background info)
The problem:
He dropped the computer off to me a few days ago and I really just got time yesterday to mess with it... The entire case was 1 big dustball... The heatsink fins were completely covered with dust to a point where the fan wasn't cooling the system at all. At 1st I was worried that he had fried the processor, but there is no visible scarring on the CPU surface (I know this doesn't mean the CPU isn't damaged). I replaced the heatsink and fan w/ a new AMD approved Antec setup he purchased and I can get further into the boot process, but now when I boot to the WinXP CD and try to 'repair' the current install, I get a HDD error. I loaded a Win98SE boot disk and ran fdisk to check on the partitions, but the 100GB drive is only being recognized as a 30GB. The previous FAT was FAT32, not NTFS so I figured I wouldn't have a problem recognizing the format... Sidenote: he did have 5 partitions on the HDD (I read somewhere that 4 or more partitions can cause trouble).
Without trying to boot to the CD, I'd get 1/2 way into the boot process and the machine would restart.
In the BIOS, the CPU temp is 44C.
Sorry for being longwinded, but I figured I'd offer more than less information.
psmit13