How do I boot this $%^@ computer?

[Liagala]

So I'm trying to get a bunch of files off an old, piece of shit machine the production people use, and put them on a new(er) computer. I'm also supposed to clean this thing up, get rid of anything not absolutely necessary to run, and leave it there for the employees to play music on. It's hooked up to the speaker system in the plant, and has been their radio for a while.

Problem - the damn thing won't boot. It was working fine this morning. I transferred a few of the files, then got called away to do other stuff. When I came back, the screen was black. I'm pretty sure it's set to do that rather than run a screensaver, so I didn't worry. Wiggle mouse, nothing. Hit keys on keyboard, nothing. Press the power button to trigger a restart, nothing. So I held the power button down until it forced a shutdown. That's the last time it actually did what I want it to.

I've tried assorted versions of booting normally, booting into safe mode, powering off for a while and then trying again, etc. I even dug out 2 different Windows XP recovery discs (no idea which one goes to this particular computer - does it matter?) and tried to boot from them. On one I got a "usbhub.sys is corrupt" error followed by "system setup has failed, press any key to restart your computer." The other got the same error, but with "sbp2port.sys" instead of usbhub.

I'm running out of ideas. I can usually figure out what to do with an uncooperative computer once it's running, but I'm at a loss when trying to deal with one that won't get far enough for me to figure out WTF is wrong. Help?

Edit: It would probably help if I mention what it's doing. It seems like it's starting up fine, but at some point during the process (different points, not the same every time) it just hangs. It'll sit for an hour on the IBM logo screen, or the windows logo, or whatever happened to be displaying when it crapped out. It bothers me that it won't just pick a spot to error - at least then I might know what's causing trouble.

[Liagala]

More fun. When I left it to ask you guys for help, it was just starting yet another attempt at starting up. When I went back in to look at it, the Intel Boot Agent was running. It looked like this:

Client MAC Addr (numbers) GUID (lotsa numbers) DHCP ..../

It waited on the DHCP part for a while, then gave an error, "PXE E53 No boot filename received" Another line came up saying "No operating system found. Press F1 to repeat boot sequence." It sat there for a few seconds, then started over.

[AnticorRifling]

Unplug everything but the monitor, boot it. It should give you a keyboard error and beep at you. Turn it off plug in monitor + keyboard, boot it. See what happens. Keep adding one periph at a time and see if you don't have something plugged into a port that's shit the bed.

Other than that old systems can be a bitch and remote troubleshooting them is ugly.

[AnticorRifling]

More fun. When I left it to ask you guys for help, it was just starting yet another attempt at starting up. When I went back in to look at it, the Intel Boot Agent was running. It looked like this:

Client MAC Addr (numbers) GUID (lotsa numbers) DHCP ..../

It waited on the DHCP part for a while, then gave an error, "PXE E53 No boot filename received" Another line came up saying "No operating system found. Press F1 to repeat boot sequence." It sat there for a few seconds, then started over.

That's a hey I can't see my HDD so I'm looking for a network boot because you've got that enabled in the BIOS type message.

[Liagala]

I unplugged everything except the monitor, got a keyboard error. Plugged that in, got a mouse error. So far, so good. I plugged in the mouse and tried again. This time it flashed the IBM logo screen for a couple seconds, then shut off. I tried it a couple more times with the same result.

[g++]

Are you sure it isnt a network boot?

This is usually the point I will take the case apart and actually see if I can hear the hard drive spinning. Just knowing that will tell you which category of fucked your in.

[Suppa Hobbit Mage]

There is a special keycode some older computers use. Boot via disk and then /cd to the root drive, and type U96, that should dos boot the machine.

[Liagala]

Are you sure it isnt a network boot?

This is usually the point I will take the case apart and actually see if I can hear the hard drive spinning. Just knowing that will tell you which category of fucked your in.
No, it isn't a network boot. I've run (and restarted) the thing more than once without connection to the network.

I opened the case and did hear the HD spinning (briefly, before the whole thing shut down again), so that's a good sign.


There is a special keycode some older computers use. Boot via disk and then /cd to the root drive, and type U96, that should dos boot the machine.
Booting via disk does no good. I can get into setup and tell it to temporarily boot from the disk drive, but as soon as I do so it powers off, just like the attempts to boot normally do.

[g++]

Go into your bios screen and see if the hard drive is displayed as an available disk. Disable anything that isnt your hard drive. You might be able to disable USB ports in your BIOS. The problem is no one on earth is going to be able to know what the options for the bios on this particular piece of shit mother board are except you so its hard to give advice but as long as the hard disk isnt fried there should be some combination of disabled components that will let you get into dos and run chkdsk on the drive.

The whole usb.sys corrupt thing makes me think your hard drive corrupted when you forced a power down but i cant say that for sure from maryland. If I was you I would just throw the shit out and tell my boss to stop keeping important things on piece of shit computers with no back ups but I guess playing with the BIOS might be fun at least.

[Liagala]

While I had the cover off, I started poking around to see if anything looked disconnected, covered in dust, or otherwise not cool. Turns out the CD drive was almost completely disconnected - the plug was resting in the receptacle, but a good breeze would have pushed it out. I put that back where it belongs, and it started recognizing the HD again. It booted up to the Windows logo, sat on that for way too long, then went to the blue screen "checking file system" business. I'm going to let it run through that and see if it can figure its own problem out from here. We'll see.

[AnticorRifling]

Look at you getting all troubleshooty.

[g++]

That would do it, some of the old parallel cables for drives are like christmas lights, if one is fucked the other will follow suit.

[Liagala]

Okay. It actually booted up, and I was able to get the files off it. Hooray. I moved on to the part about uninstalling everything that isn't necessary, and now it's frozen again. This is what started the whole mess in the first place - it wasn't responding, I forced a shutdown, and had to come crying to you guys before it started back up again. I'm skurred to shut it down again, but it's very frozen.



Look at you getting all troubleshooty.
Even a broken clock is right twice a day.

[Suppa Hobbit Mage]

No one got my U96 obscure reference :(

[g++]

It sounds like the hard drive has bad sectors and corrupted shit all over it which would not be all that suprising if its been plugged into the motherboard by a thread for years. Try booting into safe mode and running chkdsk yourself and see what the errors are. Windows will do this anyway on boot from a recovery but if you do it yourself it will actually tell you how damaged the drive is.

[Stanley Burrell]

http://ducttape.umwblogs.org/files/2009/03/duck-tape.jpg

+

http://thecolormusiccompany.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Thomas-Edisons-phonograph-music-player.png

Press the turbo button.

[Cephalopod]

I can only assume Liagala has now recovered her penis collection.

[Parkbandit]

I can only assume Liagala has now recovered her penis collection.

She seemed rather panicky about it.

[Liagala]

I can only assume Liagala has now recovered her penis collection.
Sadly, Liagala has not recovered her penis collection. It is lost forever, on the fried hard drive from a while back. It's a tragedy, really.

[Asrial]

Have you had anymore difficulty with the computer, beyond the freezing during use in Windows, once you re-connected the CD-ROM drive?

If not, then you want to investigate the hard drive next. The 'disk checking' is because Windows has failed to start properly a few times and so entered a default state.

However, the decision has to be made about whether it's worth it or not. You can get a replacement computer, that outperforms it in every category, for ~$300.

I'd start by running diagnostics on the hard drive (Drive Fitness Test and/or the hard drive manufacturer's utility program).

My biggest concern for this computer would be the physical powering off it does, as you've been using it.

[Liagala]

Have you had anymore difficulty with the computer, beyond the freezing during use in Windows, once you re-connected the CD-ROM drive?
Nope

If not, then you want to investigate the hard drive next. The 'disk checking' is because Windows has failed to start properly a few times and so entered a default state.

However, the decision has to be made about whether it's worth it or not. You can get a replacement computer, that outperforms it in every category, for ~$300.

I'd start by running diagnostics on the hard drive (Drive Fitness Test and/or the hard drive manufacturer's utility program).

My biggest concern for this computer would be the physical powering off it does, as you've been using it.
I ran chkdsk as recommended by g++, and it told me everything was peachy. I did a few scans, some defragmenting, and general maintenance stuff, and everything seems to be fine. There has been no freezing or shutting down for roughly 24 hours. It's still slow, but it's old. You can't expect much out of the thing. Where its only purpose from this point forward is to be a connection between employee ipods and the overhead speaker system, an old and slow piece of junk is perfectly acceptable.

Thank you all for your help with it. :)

[AnticorRifling]

Did you tell it that I had tier shoulders? That will probably help somehow.

[Liagala]

Did you tell it that I had tier shoulders? That will probably help somehow.
You have no concept of the depth of my hatred for you.

[AnticorRifling]

Lack of concept of depth is why they call me the kidney wrecker.

[Latrinsorm]

Lack of concept of depth is why they call me the kidney wrecker.I thought it was the hepatitis, or are they both etymologically valid?

[AnticorRifling]

I thought it was the hepatitis, or are they both etymologically valid?

That sounds like a question for a penis pond owner to me.

[NocturnalRob]

That sounds like a question for a penis pond owner to me.
Bug hepatitis?