PC will boot BUT...

Hey guys!

I usually can figure out anything with computers, thanks to tons of past issues, but this one is out of my league.

I currently had a new mother board put in on my Emachines (yeh, found out after the fact what i really bought, lesson learned lol). So instead of having store reinstall computer, i did it my self (experienced) using my WinXP Pro. initial platform was media edition yuck.

The problem im having is when the "e" logo (boot screen) comes on, its for a conciderable amount of time then the black screen with blinking cursor and then my xp logo appears. Now, i've done nothing different aside from reinstalling pro 3 times on computer because i used acronis ontop of my clean install and it brought weird configure probs. So i wanted to do it all from scratch.

Im not too sure how to check what my default boot drive is (bios?) - perhaps the computer is confused on booting from my hard drive (i do have a second external h/d plugged in for my backups)

Any help would be awesome! Thanks

 

Hi Robncolle.

In the BIOS for many motherboards there is a configuration setting that enables or disables the motherboard manufacturer's "splash screen" (logo screen) at startup. By disabling the splash you will see the previously hidden BIOS actions that are being performed to scan the system and prepare it for booting to XP.

Chances are that the BIOS is just taking a long time to perform these actions. Or, perhaps E-Machines simply programmed a delay to display their splash screen for an inordinately long time - I wouldn't put that past them!

You will need to find out how to enter the BIOS configuration menu at start-up but before XP starts to load. On many motherboards you press the Delete key, but it could be the Esc key, F1, F2, etc. Sometimes there is a message displayed during startup that tells you how to enter the BIOS configuration menus. You will have to look for this or consult the documentation from eMachines to figure out how to enter the BIOS configuration.
_

 

So let me get this straight... i can go into bios setting and change either how long the screen shows or if at all while its booting up?

I contacted gateway and they say this is out of their scope for support, nice 'eh??

So unless its simple walk through - which i know its not, there doesnt seem to be much i can do without fear of damage. Is this the sort of thing i can just deal with or do you think it could do damage itself at some point?

Thanks