BIOS won't boot

[Bernie9927]

Hi everyone. My daughter has been having numerous crash and other problems with her PC until it finally packed in completely. When it did, we could switch on, the fans would work but neither the hard disk or monitor would activate. Prior to this when we were having the problems, we noticed the date kept reverting to 2002 so as the PC is over 5 years old, we installed a new BIOS battery and the computer immediately came back to life.

However, after starting up again the BIOS boot process stalled almost immediately with a note to the effect that "the BIOS has lost some of its files and is unable to proceed. Please insert a start up diskette in A "

Is it referring to the XP emergency start up files which we downloaded from MS Support and put on 6 floppy disks or will we have to download a BIOS update and put the files on a floppy ? Any advice would be appreciated.

[RickDev]

If it is truely the BIOS, that is hard to fix. Because if you can not boot to some kind of DOS prompt you will not be able to update the BIOS at all.

Try and boot to a DOS prompt with a bootable disk if you have one. If you get to a prompt then we can move forward.

[Bernie9927]

Originally posted by RickDev@Jun 24 2006, 09:57 PM
If it is truely the BIOS, that is hard to fix. Because if you can not boot to some kind of DOS prompt you will not be able to update the BIOS at all.

Try and boot to a DOS prompt with a bootable disk if you have one. If you get to a prompt then we can move forward.

[snapback]6095[/snapback]

[Bernie9927]

Originally posted by RickDev@Jun 24 2006, 09:57 PM
If it is truely the BIOS, that is hard to fix. Because if you can not boot to some kind of DOS prompt you will not be able to update the BIOS at all.

Try and boot to a DOS prompt with a bootable disk if you have one. If you get to a prompt then we can move forward.

[snapback]6095[/snapback]

Thanks Rick Dev. I will not be able to get to my daughter's PC till later today and will try the disk. When I do I will get back to you.

[Bernie9927]

Originally posted by RickDev@Jun 24 2006, 09:57 PM
If it is truely the BIOS, that is hard to fix. Because if you can not boot to some kind of DOS prompt you will not be able to update the BIOS at all.

Try and boot to a DOS prompt with a bootable disk if you have one. If you get to a prompt then we can move forward.

[snapback]6095[/snapback]

[Bernie9927]

Originally posted by RickDev@Jun 24 2006, 09:57 PM
If it is truely the BIOS, that is hard to fix. Because if you can not boot to some kind of DOS prompt you will not be able to update the BIOS at all.

Try and boot to a DOS prompt with a bootable disk if you have one. If you get to a prompt then we can move forward.

[snapback]6095[/snapback]

I dont know quite how to tell you this but when inserting the new battery, I disconnected the power lead to the hard drive and forgot to reconnect it !!! As soon as I did so the PC booted up normally. My sincere apolgies for wasting your time. I suppose I could have given you a load of crap about how the disks worked etc etc but I always think honesty is the best policy ! Once again many thanks for taking the trouble to reply in the first instance.

[RickDev]

Originally posted by Bernie9927@Jun 25 2006, 11:02 AM
I dont know quite how to tell you this but when inserting the new battery, I disconnected the power lead to the hard drive and forgot to reconnect it !!!* As soon as I did so the PC booted up normally.* My sincere apolgies for wasting your time. I suppose I could have given you a load of crap about how the disks worked etc etc but I always think honesty is the best policy !* Once again many thanks for taking the trouble to reply in the first instance.

[snapback]6105[/snapback]

Well the important thing is that the computer is up and running again and we thank you for letting us know the problem was solved and thank you for your honesty. Please stop in again if you ever have a problem or just wanna chat in our Pub area.