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Home > Archive > General Discussion > March 2001 > Help wanted
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| kandihar 2001-03-17, 5:15 am |
| I recently (5 or 6 weeks ago) installed a modem for someone and all has been working OK since. Before doing the work I noticed a beep error (1 long-1 short) and this persisted after the modem was in, but I left it as everything was working. I since found out that it could be a motherboard problem, but I don't know what exactly. I have been checking on Internet and cannot get this clarified any further.
Anyway, yesterday I got a call from the lady saying they are having a problem with the PC. They were using it up till Wednesday and now it freezes on the Win98 splash screen. While she was talking to me she switched on the PC and it gave the start up choice menu (as when pressing F8 key) and also there was an error message - "data error reading drive c: abort, retry, ignore". Can this be rectified without having to reload everything? Can the Registry backup files be used to restore this system?
Sorry for going on so long, but can anyone help? I am new to this, having only just passed A+ yesterday.
Regards
kandihar. | |
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| This is weird. Yes, the registry can (and should) be used to restore a system after some files are corrupted, but I think it sounds odd to link a modem failure to a corrupted MBR. It could be the motherboard, but if that's the case, you're in for some real grief. They're kind of pricey. | |
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| Thanks for the reply Randy.
I have also had some help from my A+ tutor who said to set the defaults in CMOS and autodetect hard drive and also to check CMOS battery is OK. I will also try a hard drive diagnostics program I have. I have read that Scandisk might also be useful. I'll try everything I can.
I don't think this problem is anything to do with the modem as it was working fine, but I'm not too sure regarding the motherboard beep error.
Anyway, I'm off to see if I can sort it now. I will let you know if I can cure this PC.
Regards,
kandihar. | |
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| Let me know how this turns out, I have had few problems with MB's. You might want to post this in the A+ forum; you may get some more helpful (certainly more plentiful!) answers there. | |
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| I eventually sorted the problem out but I ended up re-installing Windows.
Nothing I tried worked. I tried replacing the system.dat and user.dat files with the back up files, but I could not get the attributes off - it kept saying it was an invalid command. I used a hard drive diagnostic disk which brought up a 'minor error' but did not go into any more detail than that.
So I re-installed Win98 and just had to reload a couple of drivers and adjust the settings.
Took me quite a while, with all the dead-ends I went down, but at least it is fixed (I hope!).
Thanks again for your assistance.
Regards,
kandihar. | |
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| I recall having to resort to OS re-installs several times to fix what I regarded as trivial problems . . . this always irritates me as there seems to be a better way that re-starting from scratch (although it often seems to work). Always remember to back up the registry before doing any system changes, no matter how slight, it can save you some headaches. Am still not sure to tell you about what happened. Where is SomeGuy, Freak or Yeti when you need them??? |
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