OT: HELP pelase, WinXP

OK, more info:

1. I changed the BIOS battery on the MB, no difference.
2. I can access the CMOS screen; it reads my HDDs and other IDE devices fine. I can change the boot sequence.
3. I ran a RAM diagnostics tool, RAM appears fine.
4. The MB supports RAID but I never configured it to run. The RAID screen that appears has always appeared.
5. I was able to boot to the Norton Emergency Disk; it said it repaired an error in the WinXP registry. The disks and partitions are all fine. No viruses found.
6. I tried running the repair feature on the WinXP disk, and then the repair feature listed under the full install. It hangs up a lot, asks me for the Chipset Drivers (Via), &tc. When the machine reboots, it keeps returing to the WinXP setup screen, even if there's no WinXP disk, and after several re-boots with other bootable disks.
7. A couple capacitors have a slight bulge on teh top. I'm leaniong to a blown MB.

You guys are grat, thanks for the responses.

-Zz

Many of the PC Boards these days used in CPU applications are 7 layer boards and you cannot solder them.

Mine have "X" shapes, and two adjacent ones look bulged and heated.

Sadly, not so. It's an older board (I mispoke, it's a Soyo KT600). I'd also have to replace/upgrade RAM, graphics board, and probably HDD (most new boards only support SATA), OS, &tc. I'll check around, but it's an expensive endeavor

I've taught my daughters to store the important stuff (to them, that's

Thanks for the informative response.

-Zz

Zz Yzx wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

Disks, as in plural? I had a machine with RAID1, 2 drives mirroring each other. Windows update always screwed this up, so I finally killed the RAID. But before that, I could take out one of the drives, and the machone would boot fine. Can you go down to just one hard drive and see whether the machine will boot?

Thanks Han.

Done that, no diff. No drives attached to RAID header, never were.

-Zz

Zz Yzx wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

Does that suggest you should try to NOT have the RAID be called from the BIOS, or whatever?

Curiouser and curiouser. Could she have tried to set up a RAID?

Try this:

There are 2 main beep codes for the Award BIOS:

• one long beep and two short beeps - Video error (reseat or replace video card)
• two short beeps - N> Sorry for the OT post, but I'm a little desparate.

Try this:

There are 2 main beep codes for the Award BIOS:

• one long beep and two short beeps - Video error (reseat or replace video card)
• two short beeps - N> Sorry for the OT post, but I'm a little desparate.

Try this: forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=199401

AWARD BIOS ERROR BEEP CODES

There are 2 main beep codes for the Award BIOS:

• one long beep and two short beeps - Video error (reseat or replace video card)
• two short beeps - N> Sorry for the OT post, but I'm a little desparate.

The RAID may have been turned on when windows was set up and silently failed upon not seeing an array of drives. Disable the RAID in the BIOS, and maybe the fail is a bit more catastrophic?

Just a wild guess.

Try this: forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=199401

There are 2 main beep codes for the Award BIOS:

• one long beep and two short beeps - Video error (reseat or replace video card)
• two short beeps - N> Sorry for the OT post, but I'm a little desparate.

Try this: forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=199401

There are 2 main beep codes for the Award BIOS:

• one long beep and two short beeps - Video error (reseat or replace video card)
• two short beeps - N> Sorry for the OT post, but I'm a little desparate.

I'd tend to agree that it could well be a whacked out windows issue ... Windows Update? (just kidding....)

From what I've read of the symptoms I'd be tempted, at this point, to attempt to recover my data with a bootable disk of some type (maybe burn a Ubuntu boot disk) see if I can access the files and save them to another media, reformat, reinstall XP, and see if the problem persists.

I can't find a way to stop it. When I enter the RAID setup, all the choices a grayed out, and it lists "No Drive"

The RAID bio screen has flashed since the day I set it up.

Not a chance. She has no idea what it is, or how to access it.

Not at all, but I won't pay $100 to diagnose a $60 drive. I suppose if I needed the files on it, but that wasn't the case.

Can you download or have someone download& burn a "HIRENS BOOT DISK" for you ?? It's easily found in a GOOGLE search, and it is a bootable disk. Once it is loaded, you have MANY options to diagnose/repair/restore all sorts of hard drive boot problems. It even gives you the optio to boot into a MINI XP OS that allows you to backup any/all data to cd/dvd blanks. If you can't get the disk and are not in a BIG hurry, get in touch and I'll send you one.

I lost a motherboard in the shop - it was naturally the only LSI chip that didn't have a heat sink - Disk controller...

From the Bios, I found I could read the voltages in the system. That might be instructive. If one is flaky or bad - it detects it early.

Mart>> Now, on boot-up,her computer just cycles through the motherboard

I jhust paid $300 to a data recovery shop to get the data off a flakey $49 drive, and the customer was ecstatic. I warned them it could cost $1000 - regenerating all the data from scratch would have cost in the high tens of thousands.