Posts by Xlphos

Could you please put an english translation in your posts.

Does your BIOS show your hard drive? or does the POST show your hard drive?

I don't understand what you are after doing. You don't seem to want to install windows but want to still use your computer. Or is it a case of you can't install windows?

Kunt u alstublieft een Engels vertaling in uw berichten.

Heeft uw BIOS ga je harde schijf? of heeft de POST toon je harde schijf?

Ik begrijp niet wat u na het doen. U lijkt niet te willen Windows te installeren, maar wil nog steeds gebruik maken van uw computer. Of is het een geval van je niet kunt Windows installeren?

A better description of the problem usually gets a more useful reply.

- Let us know what you are referring to as it will help us come to a solution.

Which drive are you refering to?

Hello,

Have you set the jumpers to the correct setting on the drive connected to IDE cable?

If you double click on the device with the exclaimation mark what is the error description?

Hello,

If you have not hard formated the drive, it is possible, that you have still like 10GB hiddne located on the HDD. It is like recovery partition. Please have a look on it. If it is the case, then please read the manual to the laptop on how to restore your Windows OS.
But it looks like you will have to google for help anyway.

Otherwise as written before, you have to find someone with the same Windows OS - DVD.

Hopefully your recovery partiton will still be there and you can restore from that. You should be able to get the restore disk from the manufacturer.

Something else you may want to try is using you vista business disc, don't enter a serial number when installing and select vista home. Then enter the home serial number later on

You won't get the pre loaded software though. The other option of using a restore partiton is the best though.

Why would you want to install home instead?
Don't forget to backup that important data.

- Let us know how it goes.

What should happen is once you connect your external harddrive it should be detected and viewable via my computer. It should display files stored on the drive. These could be copied.

If you can't see files perhaps the file system is corrupt.

press windows key+R type cmd press enter. Command prompt should come up.

Type diskmgmt look for the external drive in the new window and let us know if it says unallocated or FAT32/NTFS.

to close command prompt type exit or press the cross

- Let us know how it goes

If you have formatted the disk then there is no operating system on the disk. Causing the boot message you gave. You need to install an operating system in order to boot the machine.

- Hope this helps

translated using http://translate.google.com/

Als je de schijf geformatteerd, dan is er geen besturingssysteem op de schijf. Waardoor de boot bericht dat u gaf. U moet installeren van een besturingssysteem om op te starten van de machine.

- hoop dat dit helpt

According to http://translate.google.com/ post in english:

Dutch to English translationShow romanization

I have a very old laptop toshiba 210 cs and I formatted it with ms-dos start but now he no longer boot menu, and it only indicates invalid system disk please valid system disk.

I tried everything but nothing doing.
get it in the bios but nothing to change the boot seqeunce.
priorotaty or boat.

The laptop does not even have a floppy drive.

So do not know if the laptop is on or the hard disk.
hard drive is recognized.

system specifications (very old)

120 mhz
32 mb ram
CD-ROM
10 gig hard drive
former win 98
battery life approx 2 hours

gr Jeannot

Hello,

Do you mean you shut the computer down by pressing the power button?

If you are using windows does it say shutting down or restarting?

> How could a firewall cause the problem? both computers are using the
> same firewall.

Probably a configuration issue. You might want to try turning off the firewall for a couple of minutes and then see if you can observe the same behavior.

Not tried disabling firewall yet.

On my uni network it does exactly the same IE or Firefox.

What I am trying to do is view a post whilst not logged in then clicking on reply to post, it used to work why has it stopped recently.

I would suggest running a virus scan. Yes the download window should close by pressing the cross but if Ctrl+J worked fine then it could be a specific problem.

- Let us know if the virus scanner picks anything up.

Is this a consistant problem? Ctrl+J should open and close the download box, give it a go. Does you computer run slow? Sometimes my browser will freeze IE or Firefox.

You are better off trying a different monitor. That should tell you weither it's the monitor or not.

Okay don't think its firefox, IE is doing the same thing. Tried on Laptop and that does the same IE + Firefox.

How could a firewall cause the problem? both computers are using the same firewall.

When I try to reply to a thread I get asked to login. I do this and then instead of the message box coming up, the login page keeps coming up. Why is this happening? Anyone else having this issue?

I am using Firefox 3.5.

Sometimes, some of the windows protected files can be lost or changed. To detect any problems run the program “System File Checker” (SFC). Before you run it you should purge your PC’s cache:-

Go to “START”
Click “RUN”
Type or “copy and paste”.. sfc.exe /purgecache

Note:- the space after “exe”.

The “purgecache” in this command will empty the cache before you run the file checker. You should always purge the cache before scanning with the System File Checker (SFC). That way, you can be sure that system files are copied from your Windows installation media, and are not infected with malware or corrupted. After the cache has been purged, run System File Checker.

Go to “START”
Click “RUN”
Type or “copy and paste”… sfc.exe /scannow

Note:- the space after “exe”. You may be required to use your installation disk.

This could take a long time to complete, when finished, reboot and see if the problem still exists.

If windows keeps shuting down you could try booting into safemode with command prompt and try it from there.

Only the command line should be avaliable so you can type the highlighted text. But you can try Bob_180_Bob's suggestion first if that fails try what I suggested.

Perhaps you could try a linux live CD. The ones I have automatically boot, if everything works then maybe it is more of a software/OS issue.

Do you have any other USB devices connected? perhaps try having just the keyboard connected and see if you can get that XP cd working.

- Let us know how it goes.

Just so you know those dell adds are getting in the way same as my original post, the drop down menus are behind the adds.

Hello,

is this a USB or PS/2 keyboard?

Can you still boot into windows or does you PC fail to boot?

Have you tried different monitors connected to this PC or have you viewed the screenshots on different PC's?

You can pick up a decent graphics card for quite a reasonable price these days.

You say the subtitles are pixilated have you tried increasing the resolution for the game? What is game play like? jitterey?

A better graphics card could help, I don't have any experience using ATI products but if you got an Nvidia card go for a 8600 or better, that should do.

Things you have to look for is memory speed DDR, DDR2, DDR3 etc... (higher the better)
Also clock speed (higher the better)
You will have to make sure you have adequate power though.

- Could you post the spec of the card you have...

You are going to give us more information. Give us a full system spec.

the motherboard model number and brand/make is most important. You motherboard may not support anymore.

Do you notice the amount of RAM during POST? (you may have to press something like ESC or tab as soon as you turn your pc on)

Hello,

Well if a linux live cd works fine i would say the hardware could very well be working. Did you try safe mode or are you unable to get into safemode?

Did you apply any updates or install any new software.

Hi,
There a few easy things we can try but you must have your Windows installation CD for what I have in mind, do you have it?

No sorry I don't unfortunately.

Hello,

Do you have a friend that has a Windows installation CD? You should be able to use that to repair your install if it is the same edition.

Or, perhaps you have a restore partiton. Are you aware of a restore partiton on your computer? - some have a repair option.

Hello, Did you install any new software or updates shortly before the blue screen?

You say you have no viruses. Was there any? or did you not find any?

As for you thoughs on RAM can you do a memory test? some linux distros have a memory test function there maybe other programs out there I am not aware of. You may want to get a light linux distro to test the memory.

- Let us know how it goes.

Hello,

Is this your motherboard?

Seems to me that the graphics card you can get is PCI-E.

as for any advice on graphics cards it depends on what you are going to use the card for, if you are not playing high end games you can get a reasonably priced mid range one.

Another thing to take into account is the power requirement of the card, it won't work without enough power.

- hope this helps.

Have you tried a USB keyboard? It maybe worthwhile trying that.

Hello,

Is everything in IE displayed larger or is it specifically text ?

Have you tried pressing CTRL & + or CTRL and scroll using the mouse wheel?

- Let us know how it goes.

Are you after just windows 7 on the PC or after XP and win 7?

You say you have the Vista recovery disc. Use that and then upgrade that. This should work if you only want windows 7 though if you want XP aswell thats another story.

- Let us know how it goes.

Does your mouse still work without the keyboard plugged in?
Have you tried plugging in the keyboard after windows has started?
Have you another USB keyboard to try?
Is the mouse USB aswell?

You may have to set something in BIOS, have you looked through that to see if there is anything relating the USB devices?

Hello,

Try using chkdsk at command prompt. Try typing chkdsk volume:/r were volume is the drive letter, the /r should scan for bad sectors and fix them.

- Let us know how it goes.

Hello,

Do you know if it has a recovery partiton? When the computer starts up does it display any options to boot to recovery partiton by pressing something like F10?

You should have or get the recovery disc for this computer. How long a go did you buy it? If you just bought it ask for the recovery disc or how to make them (if you have to make them).

- Hope this helps.

Hello,

One of the first things you should do is find out what motherboard you are using. Post your system specs if you know them.

Once you know what motherboard you are using you need to find out the beep codes by searching the web or looking in the manual.

Then count how many beeps there are and the type fast beeps, long beeps etc.. then you should know the error and hopefully how to fix it.

- Let us know how it goes

Intel GMA 4500MHD integrated video card on laptops become so popular these days. There are so many laptops using that video card.

I have 1 question, is it good for gaming ?
How about the performance ?

Thanks

I think you'd be much better with Nvidia or ATI graphics. I had a 4 year old laptop with ati and a computer a year old with intel and I couldn't play quite a few games.

My advice go for an Nvidia or ATI card.

Right, I have a HP laptop and when I turn the laptop on an option for system restore is shown F10 or F11 I think. If you keep pressing the one displayed at start up the system restore partition should start up. From there you should be able to reinstall Vista.

Let us know if it's there.

Okay. When you turn the laptop on do you press F11 or F10?

Do you enter a restore partiton then?

Then you'd be better off contacting HP and tell them you can't restore the system. I don't think I can be of any more help but someone else maybe able to help.

Just another question, were you trying the system restore from CD/DVD?

Do you have many programs running at startup? like DVD burning software, manufacture programs. You can stop some processes running at start-up that may increase the speed of your system.

Press windows key+R and type msconfig press enter and select the start-up tab and disable any unwanted programs (make sure you know you don't need then).

If that is the case if maybe worthwhile trying a factory restore. This should restore the laptop to the condition you bought it (software wise anyway).

If it's 10 months old it is still under warranty. Contact HP and they should be able to send a set of recovery discs.

As for your attempts at repair have you tried a factory restore? This will format the disc and erase everything on it. Do you want any data saving?

What is the make and model number of the laptop?
How old is this laptop?

You say you tried the startup repair, is this from a recovery partition or a disk?

just before windows would load up press F8 to boot into safe mode Or have you alreadly tried this?

Perhaps their is something wrong with the graphics card do you have an onboard one or dedicated one? It maybe worth trying to get a dedicated card for your PC. As for clicking a pop-up message I am not sure what damage it could have done as you say it show gibberish as you start it up I would think this is a hardware issue.

I honestly can't see the point of wanting to do this. Who knows what is goning to happen to what ever OS you are using. Considering How much it costs to buy vista you may aswell keep it.

- If you really want to get rid of the disc just snap it and bin it, but I think it would be a complete waste.

Not much information you are giving away there. What processor are you using? What RAM are you using? DDR? DDR2? DDR3?
Most, if not all, modern motherboards will support more memory than you are asking for.

I agree, you need to give us more info. What do you intend on using you new PC for? Which OS are you intending on using?

What is the spec of your current PC it maybe worthwhile upgrading your current PC.

You may aswell list your intended spec.

Some processors come with a heatsink and fan that should be good enough for normal use. Using a different fan than the one provided voids the warranty(at least for the phemon II one I got it did).

Are you intending on overclocking your system?
I used to have an antec one and that was fine. It would depend if you are overclocking, you can spend quite a bit if you want to do some serious cooling.

Did you create the recovery disk yourself?
If you did was their a recovery partition?
If there is a recovery partiton you should try that.

also can you enter safe mode?

- let us know how it goes.

Try doing it from command prompt.

Press Windows Key+R(or click on start then run) and type cmd press enter.

Then in command prompt type shutdown/r if it hangs as before then try to type shutdown/r /f. It it works when forced (/f -option) then their could be a process that is not stopping or exiting when you try to restart normally.

- Let us know how it goes.