I get error message #m4001, PXE-E61, Media test failure, check cable. I have replaced the original harddrive with a Western Digital 80gb ATA 100 ide. I cannot get to the bios. I don't have the installation cd that came with it. But I do have the drivers on a cd...Need some advice which way to go.
Tek-Tips is the largest IT community on the Internet today!
Members share and learn making Tek-Tips Forums the best source of peer-reviewed technical information on the Internet!
-
Congratulations Chriss Miller on being selected by the Tek-Tips community for having the most helpful posts in the forums last week. Way to Go!
Unable to get to bios, have installed new hd. 3
- Thread starter cajunmom
- Start date
-
1
- #2
-
1
- #3
Hard drives don't need drivers. So that's not it.
When you say you can't get to Bios. is it because it won't come up after pressing the "del" key. Maybe in your PC its another key. Have you tried pressing f2 or f10 at startup to get into the BIOS?>
----------------------------------
Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.
When you say you can't get to Bios. is it because it won't come up after pressing the "del" key. Maybe in your PC its another key. Have you tried pressing f2 or f10 at startup to get into the BIOS?>
----------------------------------
Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.
- Thread starter
- #4
- Thread starter
- #5
Do you get anything at all. any beeps, or POST messages? Memory check? anything at all on screen?
----------------------------------
Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.
----------------------------------
Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.
- Thread starter
- #7
Well follow the advise from the message, Check that the cable is plugged in properly, and that the jumpers on the drive are set correctly. The red line on the ide cable should always face towards the power connnector when plugged into the drive.
Check that its properly seated in the IDE channel on the motherboard.
If all else fails try a new IDE cable.
----------------------------------
Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.
Check that its properly seated in the IDE channel on the motherboard.
If all else fails try a new IDE cable.
----------------------------------
Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.
-
1
- #10
The message "m4001, PXE-E61, Media test failure, check cable" means the PC is trying to boot from its network adapter and has nothing to do with the hard drive cabling or jumpering.
Have you tried to remove the new hard drive just to see if you can regain entry to BIOS?
Have you tried to remove the new hard drive just to see if you can regain entry to BIOS?
- Thread starter
- #11
I have used another ide cable, tried to start it without the harddrive connected. Still unable to get into the bios. My pc is a gateway.
I tried the old drive in my older pc that had no harddrive in it and was able to get into the bios when it was hooked up and not connected. I am unable to hear any noise other than the fans running. I certainly appreciate all of the replies.
I tried the old drive in my older pc that had no harddrive in it and was able to get into the bios when it was hooked up and not connected. I am unable to hear any noise other than the fans running. I certainly appreciate all of the replies.
I'm curious to know if the hard drive installation caused the current condition or was the hard purchased to try to fix the boot problem?
Try to locate in your manual the procedure to reset your CMOS, usually a jumper on the motherboard. If you can't locate that information, you could try removing the CMOS battey for a few hours.
If clearing CMOS doesn't help, then it may be time to strip the PC down to the necessities: CPU, memory, video card. Remove everything else.
Try to locate in your manual the procedure to reset your CMOS, usually a jumper on the motherboard. If you can't locate that information, you could try removing the CMOS battey for a few hours.
If clearing CMOS doesn't help, then it may be time to strip the PC down to the necessities: CPU, memory, video card. Remove everything else.
- Thread starter
- #13
The harddrive was purchased to fix the boot problem. The Media test failure message was what prompted me to check out the old drive, then finding out it was not any good I installed the new one. One day when I turned on my pc the message: PXE_E61, media test failure, came up.
So now we know you have two problems:
1) You can't get into BIOS
2) Your PC won't boot
Ignoring number 1 for the moment, problem 2 is because your new hard drive is blank - it contains no data.
Do you have a CD-ROM drive and/or floppy drive connected to the Gateway?
1) You can't get into BIOS
2) Your PC won't boot
Ignoring number 1 for the moment, problem 2 is because your new hard drive is blank - it contains no data.
Do you have a CD-ROM drive and/or floppy drive connected to the Gateway?
In other brands this can be resolved by changing the boot order and disabling the network boot.
Haven't worked with many GWs but the one I currently use has [F1] for BIOS entry and boot order is under boot options on the main page. The network boot is under the first boot device only.
Suspect that Freestone's battery advice will let the CMOS settings die and the next powerup will force it back to machine setup defaults.
Without having a duplicate machine to experiment with any opinions are just guesses but I would suspect that it is failing this way because the IDE isn't bootable and there isn't anything else.
Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.
Haven't worked with many GWs but the one I currently use has [F1] for BIOS entry and boot order is under boot options on the main page. The network boot is under the first boot device only.
Suspect that Freestone's battery advice will let the CMOS settings die and the next powerup will force it back to machine setup defaults.
Without having a duplicate machine to experiment with any opinions are just guesses but I would suspect that it is failing this way because the IDE isn't bootable and there isn't anything else.
Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.
- Thread starter
- #16
i HAVE ONE WORKING PC (510S). THE ONE THAT IS DOWN IS A 500(e3200), ALSO AN OLDER ONE, 500eSSENTIAL. YES THE GATEWAY I'M TRYING TO FIX HAS A FLOPPY AND CD DRIVE. ALL MY PC'S ARE GATEWAYS. mY NEWEST PC HAS NO FLOPPY DRIVE. JUST CD/DVD DRIVE & BURNER.
edfair is right on the money, as usual.
Still ignoring the BIOS problem, go to download and create a Windows 98 SE OEM diskette.
Try it in the failing PC. Does it boot?
Still ignoring the BIOS problem, go to download and create a Windows 98 SE OEM diskette.
Try it in the failing PC. Does it boot?
And while you are at it, Cajunmom, it might be well for you to burn a bootable CD. As you note, one of your machines doesn't have a floppy to allow emergency access.
Although you have a CD and a floppy that is not an indication that they are in the boot chain.
Can you get to the other machines' BIOS setup routine? Might be well to compare the entry procedures and stored values. It may well be that you could change one of the others to network first and nothing else to see if you get the same error message, possibly with the network disconnected.
I've done nothing with network boot so I'm not familiar with the error message. But on the one gateway I get a BIOS splash message from PXE that it hooking into the interrupt chain. I would be curious if your other machines do the same, and if it is different if the network is unplugged.
Is the failing machine on the network? And, if so, was the network stuff running before the system went down?
Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.
Although you have a CD and a floppy that is not an indication that they are in the boot chain.
Can you get to the other machines' BIOS setup routine? Might be well to compare the entry procedures and stored values. It may well be that you could change one of the others to network first and nothing else to see if you get the same error message, possibly with the network disconnected.
I've done nothing with network boot so I'm not familiar with the error message. But on the one gateway I get a BIOS splash message from PXE that it hooking into the interrupt chain. I would be curious if your other machines do the same, and if it is different if the network is unplugged.
Is the failing machine on the network? And, if so, was the network stuff running before the system went down?
Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.
- Thread starter
- #19
I am in the process of installing windows 98se, My XP bit the dust so I have to get another one. I got a floppy boot disc and got into the bios, changed the boot sequence and even had to swap out cd drives because the one that was in it wouldn't work. It booted to the windows CD and it looks like it will be ok. Thanks to everyone here who took the time to help. I have learned a lot of invaluable information..
- Status