my computer just wont start

[rookie1010]

Hi
My machine running windows xp 1 wont start

sometimes it just halts at "Detecting IDE drives", the red light signifiying hard disk activity goes on for some time and then goes off

sometimes it goes throughand hten gets stuck right after displaying that i have a hard drive and a cd rm

sometimes after @Boot from CD@

there is hard disk activity since the red light is on with a blank screen

and sometimes i get the bar which would have been followed by the windows screen and the @hard disk activity light@ is on.


please help

i decided to reinstall windows xp, however it wont boot from the cd

i tried the 6 disks to reinstall windows, hoever there is that error 7 problem with the second disk

 

[TheMajor]

Did you change anything lately? I suggest checking all cables and jumpers first. I had almost same problem 5 minutes ago.
Resetting your CMOS could help, too.
Also do a memtest www.memtest.org

 

[rookie1010]

you mean change something hardware wise?
no, i have not changed anything hardware. i was fooling around with my nephew, he was trying to start soemthing with the mouse, and i was using the alt+f4 to close his stuff.

which cables and jumpers should i check. do you think it might be a boot sector virus.

how wise is resetting the CMOS, and how could i do that?

i will do the memtest, i think i need to burn the memtest program onto a cd. how long does it take to do the memtest program. does this memtest program test the memory(RAM) or the hard disk

 

[TheMajor]

u can put memtest on a floppy and boot from it.
I dunno if its a bootsector virus.
check your manual for instrauctions to reset your CMOS.
memtest tests your RAM

 

[rookie1010]

you think it might be the RAM, so if boottest passes, we have eliminated a bad RAM as a problem?

what does resetting the CMOS do? you mean to say that the CMOS might be an indeterminate state?

 

[TheMajor]

resetting your BIOS sets everything back to default... I think its the cables though. reconnect your cables and make sure they aren't backwards and do the memtest

 

[rookie1010]

i had not removed the cables in the first place, though

when you talk about cable, you mean the IDE cable, right?

 

[TheMajor]

Yes, IDE cable and the power cables. Also check the jumpers on the HD. 1 master and 1 slave per IDE cable.

 

[rookie1010]

it does seem to be something to do with the cables

i had the cd rom as a slave and the hard disk as a master o nthe primary.

when i detach the hard drive, the detection takes place with no problem,

i tried with the hard drive as primary master and cd rom as secondary slave, it worked for a bit, till i got to a screen where the computer wanted to go for last good nown configuraton, and then it ceased after counting down to 0.

then i tried to install a new copy of windows over the old installed copy of windows, i got stuck again with the detect IDE.

 

[TheMajor]

I have a suggestion.
I would hook up all your drives to a different computer to copy all data. Then format them in the other computer using start/run diskmgmt.msc

then copy data back (except the windows OS files/folders)

then hook them up to your comp and make sure each IDE cable has a MASTER. There should always be at least 1 MASTER. Put the cd-rom devices on a seperate cable and the HD's on a seperate cable. The try re-installing windows.