Hardware question

[Graham]

Anyone fancy giving some free advice?

I have a 550 MHz PIII Gateway PC that I picked up last year second hand.

Over the last month or so we had intermittant problems with the CD drive, where it would just stop reading CDs halfway through or not read them at all.

I tried cleaning the drive, replacing the drive with a spare one I had and even tried replacing the IDE cable (it was very twisted, I thought it might have been broken inside or something) but to no avail.

Next thing, the hard drive failed and we got a "NTLDR not found" error.

Booting off the floppy only got me access to a DOS prompt and the C drive appears to be empty!

My local computer shop tell me it's probably the IDE controller has failed. They want to replace the system board and (because it's old) they want to replace the processor and the RAM too. Because it's a Gateway and a proprietory setup (is that right?) they say they'll have to replace the case as well.

Total cost around €400, though I'll have a much better system at the end of it.

So here's my questions:

1) Does their assessment sound correct?

2) Is it likely that the data from my hard drive will be recoverable?

and

3) I don't have €400. What I do have is a Dell Optiplex case with a functioning system board, processor, power supply, etc but no drives / RAM.

If I just pull out the drives and RAM from the gateway and put them into the Dell box, is that likely to work or is there going to be compatability problems of some sort?

Any advice / suggestions would be appreciated.

Graham

 

[Leif Roar]

1) Does their assessment sound correct?

I'm not a HW man, but yes, their assessment sounds right to me.

2) Is it likely that the data from my hard drive will be recoverable?

If it is the IDE controller that's shot, yes the data from your hard-drive will most likely be recoverable.

and

3) I don't have €400. What I do have is a Dell Optiplex case with a functioning system board, processor, power supply, etc but no drives / RAM.

If I just pull out the drives and RAM from the gateway and put them into the Dell box, is that likely to work or is there going to be compatability problems of some sort?

If the RAM chips are compatible with the Dell motherboard, there shouldn't be any problems - except that your OS might fault on booting because of erronous hardware configuration. If it's a Windows version, you should be able to boot it in "Safe Mode." (If it's Linux or BSD, you can manage to boot it in sigle-user mode - but that depends on the particulars of your kernel compile and hardware configuration.)

 

[Graham]

Re: Re: Hardware question

I'm not a HW man, but yes, their assessment sounds right to me.



If it is the IDE controller that's shot, yes the data from your hard-drive will most likely be recoverable.



If the RAM chips are compatible with the Dell motherboard, there shouldn't be any problems - except that your OS might fault on booting because of erronous hardware configuration. If it's a Windows version, you should be able to boot it in "Safe Mode." (If it's Linux or BSD, you can manage to boot it in sigle-user mode - but that depends on the particulars of your kernel compile and hardware configuration.)

Thanks, there should be no problem with the RAM - half the RAM in the Gateway came out of the Dell in the first place.

The reason I'm concerned about the data is that the drive showed as empty when I booted off the floppy.

I could understand if I couldn't access the drive at all but that seems ominous to me.

Graham

 

[El Greco]

Do you have another system where you can install the hard drive and check it ?

 

[Graham]

Do you have another system where you can install the hard drive and check it ?

Only the Dell box unless I borrow someone else's PC (I don't want to crack open any of the work boxes).

Could I just connect it up to someone else's PC as a second hard drive to check it? Do I need to do some sort of master/slave thing for that?

Graham

 

[El Greco]

Only the Dell box unless I borrow someone else's PC (I don't want to crack open any of the work boxes).

Could I just connect it up to someone else's PC as a second hard drive to check it? Do I need to do some sort of master/slave thing for that?

Graham

Of course you could, that's what friends are for. If you want to test whether you can boot without problems, you should connect it as primary master which means that you will have to disconnect the primary hard drive from that computer and replace it with yours (don't forget the power cable). Most probably, both hard drives are already masters so you won't need to change any jumper settings.

Other options are to connect it as slave or secondary master but it's not any easier, so no need to do that.

If the other computer boots properly, then the IDE controller problem is more likely. If it doesn't, then next step should probably be to transfer system files from a boot floppy to your hard drive with "sys c:"

 

[Graham]

If the other computer boots properly, then the IDE controller problem is more likely. If it doesn't, then next step should probably be to transfer system files from a boot floppy to your hard drive with "sys c:"

That's SOP with an "NTLDR not found" error message, according to the internet.

I tried that though and got another error message (don't remember what it was right now though). That's what brought me to ringing the computer repair guys.

Graham

 

[El Greco]

That's SOP with an "NTLDR not found" error message, according to the internet.

I tried that though and got another error message (don't remember what it was right now though). That's what brought me to ringing the computer repair guys.

Graham

Well... depends on what the other error was... could be a lot of errors... any chance that the data on the diskette are corrupted ?

 

[Graham]

Well... depends on what the other error was... could be a lot of errors... any chance that the data on the diskette are corrupted ?

Well that's possible too but the fact that I've been having problems with the CD drive that weren't related to either the drivers, the drive itself, the cable or the connections leads me back to the IDE controller, I think.

When I get home, I'll try transferring the system files again and I'll post the error message here, if anyone's interested.

If that fails, I'll pull out the drive and hop on my bike over to my parents' house and stick it into one of their computers.

Assuming the drive is intact, I'll try setting up shop in the Dell box.

Wish me luck!

Graham

 

[Graham]

Does anyone out there have Windows ME?

Apparently there are three files that might be missing or corrupted and causing the NTLDR is missing message:

NTDETECT.COM
Ntldr
Boot.ini

This page suggests copying them off another system with the same OS. No one I know has it though

Graham

 

[El Greco]

Luck! And with luck I mean an intact drive, because everything else can be solved. Unfortunately, recovering data from a faulty drive can be impossible. Even if it is possible, it can be very-very expensive, as I have painfully found out. Since then I take backups of important data once a month.

 

[El Greco]

I have ME at home, I'm at work now.

 

[FFed]

I have ME as well if you need anything.

HERE is a good link for running ME.

 

[boomer6]

It sounds to me as though you have a few problems. The majority of them are simple mistakes. So far everybody that has said “we got a NTLDR not found error” had made the mistake of inadvertently leaving a non-systems disk in the floppy disk drive. The problem you have with not being able to find your C drive might be the differences between Fat16, Fat32, and NTFS file systems (between your boot disk and your HDD). Here is what I recommend. First thing is open your case up and disconnect the interface and power cables from your CD drive and Floppy drive (and any other removable drive you have). Remove all AGP/PCI/ISA cards you might have (except for you video card). Make sure your keyboard, mouse and monitor are all connected. Disconnect and reconnect your Hard Disk Drive. Remove your memory and then reinsert it. (Reseat it) Then boot your computer. If the computer boots, shut down and slowly install your cards one at a time (rebooting every time). Then connect your drives (one at a time).

It sounds that your main problem might be a failing power supply. (given the fact that your CD stops or does not work at all, and you tried another and changed the IDE cable)

If it is a power issue, you will know it when you attach that one device, which is just too much for your power supply to handle.

As you reboot, listen for those POST (Power On Self Test) beeps. One beep is just about right. More then one and you need to look up what the error is. (Online) Search POST errors.

As far as your memory, go online to tigerdirect.com or techdepot.com and find your memory. You are probably using SDRAM PC100 and can pick it up for about $35 for one stick 128MB

Let me know what happens.

I hope some of this helps.

 

[michaellee]

Next thing, the hard drive failed and we got a "NTLDR not found" error.

Your hard disk is not writing data correctly. Your C drive data, unless you did something not reported, is recoverable at this point. When you shut down windows, and rebooted, the hard disk boot sector was incorrectly overwritten or erased, therefore the NTLDR message. In other words, BROKEN DRIVE, but data recoverable.

 

[Graham]

Your hard disk is not writing data correctly. Your C drive data, unless you did something not reported, is recoverable at this point. When you shut down windows, and rebooted, the hard disk boot sector was incorrectly overwritten or erased, therefore the NTLDR message. In other words, BROKEN DRIVE, but data recoverable.

Michaellee gets the prize

Spent a long day on Saturday surrounded by computers and computer parts.

Tried many things with the Gateway as was but got nowhere (it wasn't a power supply problem, btw IMO, when the CD wasn't working it was spinning constantly but not reading. In fact you had to eject the CD to get it to stop spinning).

Tried switching the drives, etc into the Dell box but it turns out that the motherboard in that is fubarred (at least according to the BIOS beeps).

But then I had a flash of inspiration, stuck the Dell recovery CD into the drive and installed Windows 98 off that (I don't have a CD for ME, btw).

Then I took the drives and RAM back out of the Dell and put them back in the Gateway box, powered it up, spent a few minutes in setup and everything was gravy (well, excep the mouse which, for some reason, it took me another 45 minutes to get working ).

All our data (or, in more personal terms, the digital photos of our son's first few days of life ) were intact.

The hard drive now appears to be functioning correctly. Still have the same problem with the CD though, what ever that's about.

Regardless, the photos are saved and soon to be thoroughly, repeatedly and redundantantly backed up.

Thanks to everyone for help and suggestions.



Graham

 

[Wudang]

I've heard a lot of stories about hardware places telling people that they needed their motherboards replaced when they didn't. E.g. FOAF's PC kept crashing, told motherboard needed replacing for x hundred quid (where x is ridiculous number for age of board) when the real problem was a faulty RAM chip which we replaced from the spares pile for £10.
On the other hand I've heard lots of horror stories of self-proclaimed PC gurus who've done things like formatted someone's hard drive when it just needed a "fdisk /mbr" and then took an ad in the local paper as a "data recovery expert"!
I used to work for a very big computer company and started taking an interest in fixing my own PCs when I found that our supposed PC h/w specialists couldn't find a pig in a bathtub.
Recovery disks are your friend. I think I have ME on 1 PC at home by the way but no install media for it - 2nd hand and came that way.