pc not starting up

[lagg]

Hi all, my pc wont boot up. It starts bios, displays motherboard information but stops there and goes not further, ive put the harddrive in another machine and there seems to be no damage as I can read all files ok. What should I loo into now? Memory, in the past if there is a ram failure i thought the machine omits a beeping noise?

Any help much appreciated

 

[wahnula]

First, check to see if there's a floppy or a CD in the machine. It sounds like the PC is trying to boot from somewhere other than the hard drive, triple-check your boot order in BIOS. We just had a mystery solved when a PC was found to be trying to boot from the network rather than from CD.

If there were problems with the RAM they would show up pre-BIOS or once booted. One way to test the hardware is to use a live Linux CD like Knopppix...it runs 100% from the CD, so if it runs you know the PC is OK. It IS possible there's a bad HDD or (corrupt Windows installation) that is still readable on another machine. Check that BIOS boot order...again.

Report back if you have an error like "NTLDR is missing" or "OS not found" or just a flashing cursor...some details about the PC would be nice, too.



Tony

Users helping Users...

 

[lagg]

Thanks for your response tony, I can't get into the BIOS setting, all that I see on screen is the motherboard info, then at bottom of screen is a flashing cursor. Machine doesnt respond to keyboard strikes

 

[kjv1611]

lagg,

How to get into the BIOS will vary from board to board.

Do you see any prompts at the top or bottom of the screen when the settings first appear that says "press <Del> to eneter BIOS" or "Press <F2> to enter Setup" or ..."Settings"?

Anything of that nature?

Also, as Tony asked, tell us something about the computer - is it a custom build, is it a Dell, an HP, what is it? If a motherboard, then what's the manufacturer and/or model #... if it's an OEM (Dell, HP, etc), tell us the mfg name and the model # (should be on front of case/tower, generally).

Also, if you are 100% sure it's not responding to anything on your keyboard, can you try a different keyboard? And with that, verify that you are rebooting at each attempt, and not just seeing it sit there for a long time, and then try different buttons. You have to hit the Del, F2, whatever before the PC attempts to boot from hard drive, CD, etc.

--

"If to err is human, then I must be some kind of human!" -Me

 

[ghrark]

ok. blinking cursor. sounds like a bad OS install. i agree it could be keyboard related but it sounds like a bad OS install. recommend reinstalling your OS