Replacing Hard Drive help

John

I think it may not be too bad - I just found a reference to

best wishes, HJ.

 

Hi again

if it's not that the video adaptor's a tiny bit out of socket, check this:

unplug the monitor lead and look carefully at the pins in the connector where it plugs in - ensure that you don't have a pin bent over. It's horribly easy to do.

best wishes, HJ.

 

Hi Hugh -- Everytime I come here to post a reply you have something else for me to try.

Thank you. To make it short I checked the plug in the monitor and didn't find any bent but I did find two missing.

Before checking the pins I removed the card and reinserted it. Somehow it got jarred loose. Turned on the computer and it works, sort of. All I could get was a 8X8 grid white with black lines changing to black with white lines. Guess those missing pins could be the cause. Now I gotta borrow the other monitor again.

Looked where the monitor cord plugs into the computer but didn't see the missing pins. Oh well at least I know where the problem lies.

Thanks for your time and input Hugh. I never thought about the plug. The card came to mind but I didn't think it to be the problem because I wasn't near it. Well I thought I wasn't.

 

Hi again

monitor connectors don't have all the pins - this is normal! How many are missing depends upon the particular hardware. If you see no pins bent over then you're probably OK.

(almost unbelievable but - it's not unknown for monitors to get plugged in the wrong way round in the socket. That does bend the pins over...)

Try the other monitor again, see if you get the same display, let us know...

Rockster's point about checking that your boot order is "floppy first" is crucial!

...but about flashing/upgrading the bios - good to be aware of but (I hope!) you don't need a new bios - just to change the settings for the one you have.

I think you will be stuck with EZ-BIOS or the like - in your original link it describes the HDD interface as IDE, not EIDE... which makes me think your motherboard won't recognise more than 8.4GB without assistance from a kludge.

Things is, will you have to jumper the drive to misreport its size low? try to avoid this if you can.

(when I put a 30GB I didn't have to - but then afterwards tried with a 40GB and a 60GB from the same family, both the larger ones I had to fiddle the jumpers to get the bios to "grab hold" of the drive)

first step has got to be to get a legible display restored.

best wishes, HJ.

 

Didn't know that about the monitor cord, but then I know squat about hardware although I'm learning a little at a time.

Floppy has always been first in boot up. The only time I changed it was when I made a boot cd and changed the order to see if it worked. I changed it back when I finished and never changed it again. Unless it changed due to power failure when I pulled the plug I have no idea how it could have changed without me changing it. So on this I'm pretty sure floppy is first in the boot order.

It'll be tomorrow before I get the other moniter and I'll post back with the results.

In the meantime I've got to do a little reading on the bios upgrading. No nothing about flashing and not even going to attempt it. If it looks like I might have to change the motherboard I think I'm just going to get it working again and let the kids have it. I'll get a new one and duel boot it if I can.

Later

 

Hi again.

Tried another monitor and got the same results as before. The computer boots up fine but the monitor only shows a grid of squares 8X8 from top to bottom. It will be white squares with black lines to make the squares and after about 5-10 seconds it will change to black squares with white lines. It repeats this for as long as the monitor is on.

This happened once before. I turned the computer off one night but forgot to turn off the monitor. When I turned the computer on the next day the white grids were there. When I turned off the monitor and turned it back on it was normal. Didn't happen today.

I've still got the old hdd in so there shouldn't be any problems there. I wasn't able to use the setup disk when I installed the new hdd because the monitor wouldn't work properly so there shouldn't be any problems there. Any that I know of anyway.

I'm at the point now that I think the video card may be malfunctioning. But not sure. Any ideas? Thanks again.

 

Sometimes the video card gets tempermental in seating. Try reseating again.

Note: If you ever want to buy more RAM, you're motherboard will NOT support PC133. It's one of the few boards that PC133 is not backwards compatible.

 

Hi RayH -- Thanks for the tip. I'll give it a try.

This comp came with only 32mb ram when I purchased it and I upgraded to 256 about 4 years ago. Don't think it'll handle any more.

 

For some reason the video card seems to be stuck in a test pattern. I'd say it was gone, unless per chance it was waiting on the correct key stroke or something to kick it along. Reseating as suggested by RayH may help.

 

Tried reseating again and again but can only get the black screen. The grids are now gone. Oh well. I'll replace the card.

Thanks for the help everyone.

 

John

check the seating of all the PCI and AGP cards before you give up altogether - I think Mark's close with his

if your video adaptor is sharing an INT (not IRQ!) with one of the other slots the card in the other slot might be the culprit...

clutching at straws OK, but it would be a silly one to miss. Also, while concentrating on the video card your attention would be drawn away from what's going on in the other slots... if the other card got wiggled a bit while you were reseating the video adaptor it could account for the way the behaviour has altered once again...

good luck, HJ.

 

Hi Hugh

Got it!!! While looking to see if the modem and sound card was ok I noticed the video card was slightly askewed. Took it out and put it back in but this time I made sure it was aligned ok before tightening the *****. Plugged it all up and turned it on. Working ok now. Whew. That was a tough little bugger. Each time I thought I had it in right it wasn't.

Well, that problem is solved. Thanks everyone for the help. I definately needed it.

Now to see if I can get the kinks out of this darn XP....

 

well done John! good luck with the big HDD, let us know how you get on
pesky connectors only got to be a tiny bit adrift
best wishes, HJ.

 

Thanks Hugh -- The big hdd problem is solved. I'm not putting it in the 98 computer. It's going in the xp computer when I get everything set up.