Since it fails at random points my first guess would be a memory problem. You’ve swapped out the RAM with known-good RAM, so the next most likely suspect is the processor or motherboard. Specifically, I’ve seen this happen when the cache RAM on the processor goes to hell - try going into the BIOS and disabling the L1 and L2 cache RAM. The system will run slow as hell, but if it’s stable, replace the processor. If it’s not, you’re still right back where you started, but I’d suspect processor before motherboard, so replace the processor first.
Memtest86 is the god of all RAM testers. Give that a try (although it’ll still throw errors if the cache memory is the culprit)
my $.02… before trying anything else, get a copy of Ghost and make a backup of the drive. Unless the drive has failed altogether, you should at least be able to get an image of what is on it now. That way, if you goof up and wipe the thing, you can always restore from the image and try again.
You hard drive, and thus Windows, does not care about what kind of processor or motherboard you have. All the time, when people upgrade, they take all the peripherals out of the computer and connect them to the new MB/Processor/(maybe)Memory combo. Windows will boot up normally and probably won’t even have to go through the whole new hardware detection thing (unless the new motherboard has onboard audio/LAN/etc.).
I rate your diagnosis very high. Troubleshooting computers is just a process of elimination.
I recommend (if you haven’t already):
Replace the hard drive in a known good & complete system with her hard drive (with all the important stuff). Windows should start up just fine, although there will be a lot of new hardware detected. Win2k should be able to handle this fairly automatically. If this works, take the HD out and set it aside. Don’t reformat it since you will probably be able to save all that’s on there.
Go to CompUSA and buy a new motherboard and processor. They have a fairly liberal return policy. You may get hit with a restocking fee for opened merchandise, but I’ve managed to talk my way out of it with the manager several times in the past.
Hook up your hard drive, provided #1 above turned out OK. Hook up only 1 CD drive, 1 stick of memory, video card if necessary, and power supply. Boot up. If everything is OK, then you can start adding devices one by one, ensuring that nothing causes a problem.
Return the MB combo to CompUSA and then go to www.newegg.com or some other such online seller and buy the same thing for significantly less. Even if CompUSA charges you a restocking fee (10-15%) you will probably have saved this buy buying online.
I have tried this. I don’t remember the errors specifically, but it didn’t work
I told my friend that while I think that there’s a hardware problem with her mb or CPU, I couldn’t say anything one way or another about the state of her hd.
She’s a doctor, so she understands about you can make progress but still not know things.
How sure are you about this info that you’ve provided?
My experience in the past has been that hds that were formatted on one of my machines didn’t always boot when i stuck them on another machine. I could of course, format and reinstall windows in the new machine and have everything work just fine. On the other hand, I have taken a hd from my wife’s machine and stuck it into mine without any problem. But our mbs are both recent model Soyos.
I did take my friends hd and stick first into a spare box- forget which error, but wouldn’t boot.
I then took it and stuck it in my box and had similar results.
Then I stuck it in her spare machine and couldn’t get it to go.
Being as ignorant as I am, I then had to take my spare hd and format it in my machine and then tried to put into my spare box to see if one even could expect that sort thing to work. If I could easily do so, I reasoned, then I would be able to tell that my friend’s hd had troubles as well. However, since the freshly formatted functioning hd (my spare) didn’t work when I dropped into my spare machine, I wasn’t willing to make a diagnosis about her hd one way or the other. It could be that the hd was busted or that the spare machine just wouldn’t cooperate with it.
Just to be sure, I tried to format the spare hd in the spare machine- in situ. That worked just fine.
I don’t know what the pertinent variables are, but it seems that hds aren’t always capable of just being dropped into another machine. But like I said, I;m very ignorant about these sorts of things. Maybe there’re some special steps that I missed. :shrug:
That’s why I ask how sure you are of this knowledge. If it’s a hardware gospel, and/or you’re an engineer or something, then I’ll re-examine the process of just dropping that hd into another machine.
At this point, I’m not willing to say that my friend’s hd has problems or doesn’t have problems. It’d be handy if I knew for sure that it did. Then next steps would be more straightforward.
10-4 on this part.
I’ve got just these few more things to try and then we’ll prob’ly go this route.
I had some installation problems recently during a processor/mobo upgrade and W2K reinstall. I had quite a few problems that, when put together, spelled disaster and it took me almost an entire day to ferret it out. First, I had some bad areas on my hard disk (failed install). Second, I forgot to disconnect a CD drive that didn’t have power going to it from the IDE bus (sometimes wouldn’t boot to the proper CD drive). Third, the CD drive I was trying to use for an install was glitchy/old/dirty (hanging installation). Many of the symptoms you describe are exactly what I saw.
I’ve run chkdsk /r from the recovery console on both of the disks (hers and my spare).
Is this a suficient test to determin if i have disk erors?
Hate it when it’s something that makes you smack you forhead.
I swapped out her cdrom with my brand new cdrom. I was able to format and intsall win2k on my machine and on my spare machine using my brand new cdrom.
I did not however bother to test her cdrom in a similar fashion since I wasn’t trying to use it to format and install my spare hd on her machine.
I think that this is sufficient to rule out the CDrom as the source of my inability to format and install win2k on my spare hd when it’s in her machine.
however, I don’t know what all I don’t knwo about computers. I’m very ignorant in this area. I’m running solely on the remaining tatters of my native intelligence.
If you know of a reason why the above procedure would not reveal a problem with the cdroms please, please, please let me know.
I’ve run chkdsk /r from the recovery console on both of the disks (hers and my spare). Is this a suficient test to determine if I have disk erors?
Hate it when it’s something that makes you smack you forhead.
I swapped out her cdrom with my brand new cdrom. I was able to format and intsall win2k on my machine and on my spare machine using my brand new cdrom.
I did not however bother to test her cdrom in a similar fashion since I wasn’t trying to use it to format and install my spare hd on her machine.
I think that this is sufficient to rule out the CDrom as the source of my inability to format and install win2k on my spare hd when it’s in her machine.
however, I don’t know what all I don’t knwo about computers. I’m very ignorant in this area. I’m running solely on the remaining tatters of my native intelligence.
If you know of a reason why the above procedures would not reveal a problem with the cdroms please, please, please let me know.
I’m going to assume it’s the motherboard that’s gone - all points to that and a power failure could cause that. The CPU is probably ok. What I’d do myself is to get a new mobo (reuse CPU) and then clone the hard drive and install the clone in the rebuild system. Once W2K boots up it will likely detect the new devices in a different mobo and attempt to install drivers. These can then be supplied by the drivers CD that comes with the mobo…
If this fails I’d make a new clone and then run a repair off the W2K CD. But if no Emmergency Rescue Disk exists then this will probably not work. What’s left then is to install W2K on a spare drive and then move the ‘vital’ stuff off the original disk to the spare one. In the end the spare disk can then be cloned to the original one once things are found to be working.
I ran MEMTest86 for 4 passes- no errors. The documentation with the program said that it ‘implicitly’ test the CPU cache.
So I assume this means that the CPU is less likely to be screwy than the mobo.
So off to purchase an identical mobo from a store with a generous return policy.
Thanks for reminding me to use a clone before I begin monkeying with my friend’s hd. I’m not sure if it’s been damaged or not. I couldn’t get it to boot in any of the three other machines here.
But, neither could I get either of the other two freshly formatted hds to boot in a machine other than the one where I formatted it and installed windows. Now, I only tested the spare drives in two of the three machines. (Formatted in machine#1 and tried in machine#2. Formatted in machine#2 and tried in machine#1)
But maybe there was another error that occurred when I conducted the tests?
Did you wait a LOOONG time? Sometimes it looks like the machine’s hung when it’s really just taking for-freakin’-ever to do anything. That cache makes a HUGE difference in performance and waiting for a system to boot without it can seem like an eternity.
Okay, I’ll set it up. When it gets ‘hung’ I’ll just turn off the monitor and go about my business then go about my day and check after hours.
That should be okay and non-harmful, right?
Yeah, that’ll be perfectly fine. The only situation I can think of where that would be a problem is if the cause of your problems was overheating, but it looks like you’ve already ruled that out.
Hmmm… Unfortunately not. Sorry - I’m out of ideas. Other than replacing the processor and motherboard I don’t know what else to suggest. I’ve seen a system with cache RAM disabled take tens of minutes to boot, but never 3 hours. If I were in your shoes I’d probably swap out the processor first just because it’s easier and likely to be cheaper.