Kaunisto
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Registered: 01-2008
Location: Finland
Posts: 20
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trying to get a junk pile running
Got myself a used PC (don't ask how) so I can't give all technical details, but anyway...
Few years old PC with Windows 2000 Professional. When Windows tries to start comes blue screen with "boot device inaccessible", no matter in what mode.
I booted it with DOS and W98 diskettes and most things in the PC seem to be OK, so either OS is just messed or there's something wrong with the harddrive (likely).
The HDD is 200Gb SATA. There are two places in motherboard for it, apparently 0 and 1, but doesn't seem to make difference which one it's in.
Is there anything to be done without installing an OS or getting a new HDD?
Pressing Del in start I get to do number of things (overclocking, adjusting voltage, messing with ports etc.) and I've tried few, but of course don't dare to touch few things there without knowing better.
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7/8/08, 9:17
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The Wizard3
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Registered: 06-2006
Location: Castle Belgalor
Posts: 2201
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Re: trying to get a junk pile running
Hi Kaunisto,
There could be a mountain of problems with this tower system you've acquired. Without seeing the unit it is very hard to give a full diagnosis on what could be faulty.
I'd start in the BIOS section if you know that area but you need some experience in adjusting the modulations in this area. Mess up and you have a big paper weight on your desk.
You need to see if the hard drive is listed as a bootable device first, any other drive like the diskette drive comes second. Again, this is an area in which someone knows what they're doing, so if you know anyone locally who has experience in this area get them to take a look.
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7/8/08, 12:43
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Kaunisto
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Location: Finland
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Re: trying to get a junk pile running
uh, nevermind... I kind of... I think "molested" is the word to describe what I did to the OS.
Will have to install a new one. Wonder if this'd be a good time to fool around with Linux.
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9/8/08, 19:51
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Kaunisto
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Location: Finland
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Re: trying to get a junk pile running
Back to work on this one. I'm trying to install XP and it tells me there's no harddrive.
The current status of the drive appeares to be that it's divided to a 8mb part which has 98 DOS installed and the rest of the 200gb which I think is on some 32-bit system and cannot be accessed in any way.
Would there be simple any way to just wipe the whole thing clean of anything and everything and then install the XP?
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4/9/08, 8:35
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The Wizard3
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Registered: 06-2006
Location: Castle Belgalor
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Re: trying to get a junk pile running
Hi Kaunisto,
I'm still OFFLINE and waiting to be connected to my new ISP. I'm able to login here at work for very short periods of time to pick up any messages etc.
Answer to your question can be found in my Windows XP tips section on how to format your drive, lots of other tips there too if you have some time to look around
Link: Windows XP Tips
Wiz
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6/9/08, 8:13
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Kaunisto
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Registered: 01-2008
Location: Finland
Posts: 20
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Re: trying to get a junk pile running
Found a driver that got it to see the SATA HDD.
Now I got XP installed, but getting it running will take some time... and I'm sure those tips come handy.
edit: It's alive! surgery
But it sure is a monster. And can't talk yet; have to fight with AC'97.
Edit 2: OK now it's starting to run mostly fine, but...
I could only install XP on a 2gb partition (because I needed to fix it with a DOS boot to get it running). Obviously it's fast running out of space.
So the question is, how do I merge two partitions (there's a 30gb one next to it I can use) when one of them has XP in it?
Partition Magic 8 can't do it (apparently it can't do anything to the partition that has XP).
Kaunisto, 17/9/08, 7:48
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6/9/08, 19:40
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