need some help from the PC experts, please

randycat99 · November 10, 2002 4:07PM

A friend is trying to replace her HD in her Compaq PC (about a year old? It's one of those "bulgy front" models.) She seems to have gotten both HD's in there (the original and the new one) and the OS installed (Win98) on the fresh one. The problem is she can't get it to boot off it, except only in safe mode. Any suggestions?

smithjoel · November 10, 2002 5:16PM

Since she can get it to boot into Safe Mode, I assume that it hangs when you try to boot into normal mode.

If the new drive is the master(wich it should be) unplug the old one and see if it will boot.

randycat99 · November 10, 2002 8:17PM

Yes, it hangs if you attempt to boot off the new one. I was going to mention that- thanks. Booting off the old one works, but evidently it is virus ridden and seriously cluster-f*'d. Thus the move.

Why would unhooking the old drive do anything? Shouldn't it be possible to have 2 drives in there and be OK?

klinux · November 11, 2002 5:36AM

Make sure the new one is designated as master and the old one is deignated as slave.

Forget about booting into windows, the first thing to do is immediately after power on, press the [delete] key (may vary by PC) on your KB to go into the BIOS. The new drive should appear as master and the old one as slave either on the primary and secondary IDE channel. If not, power off. Adjust jumper setting on the back of the old HD to make sure it is set as slave. Repeat.

But before you do all that, if possible, use w2k or XP - much more stable than Win98.

randycat99 · November 11, 2002 11:28AM

OK, I will ask her if she did the BIOS thing. Thanks for the info.

Yes, the 2k/XP goes w/o saying, but she has got to go with what she has got for now, so switching OS is a bit out of the scope for the project.

So is it difficult/complicated at all to switch from Win98 to 2k/XP? Any pitfalls to avoid? Is the upgrade real cheap? Does the "upgrade" allow a clean install or "upgrade only" unless you buy the full version?

[ 11-11-2002: Message edited by: Randycat99 ]</p>

xmoger · November 11, 2002 1:16PM

After you're sure that both HD's are connected and recognized properly in the BIOS, check the drivers. If there are any devices in 'device manager' that have red x's or exclamation points on the icons, or anything using unkown/generic drivers, remove them in safe mode and reboot to normal mode.

HP's and Compaq's have traditionally shipped with a few obscure components. So if you're installing from a regular microsoft cd, the drivers may not be bundled. HP and Compaq have also traditionally shipped a proprietary windows installer/recovery cd instead of a ms disc that includes these drivers and all the extra apps they like to bundle. Good luck finding correct drivers.

I would also recommend upgrading to 2000 or XP. Upgrade cds are fine to do clean installs as long as you have a cd for a prior version around when installing.

randycat99 · November 11, 2002 2:45PM

I was fearing that issue of obscure custom drivers for that particular PC brand. This could be a big struggle (one thing after another) just getting this thing back up to its original functionality. I will ask her if she has the original discs/installers and such.

ast3r3x · November 11, 2002 3:07PM

...and that is why PC's suck

haha a new HD because the other one had a virus, i love the thought of a new HD everytime a PC gets a virus <img src="graemlins/lol.gif" border="0" alt="[Laughing]" />

klinux · November 11, 2002 3:40PM

[quote]Originally posted by Randycat99:

<strong>I was fearing that issue of obscure custom drivers for that particular PC brand. This could be a big struggle (one thing after another) just getting this thing back up to its original functionality. I will ask her if she has the original discs/installers and such.</strong><hr></blockquote>

IDE drives, especially HD, rarely require special drivers. Usually it is things like vid/sound cards and certain USB devices that cause the problems. Give the HD primary/slave thing a try first.

Most HD manufactuers' web sites provide a guide on how to install HDs as well.

randycat99 · November 11, 2002 4:00PM

Yeah, I didn't mean the HD had drivers. I was looking ahead to all of the other peripherals on there that will need to be addressed just as you had mentioned.

xmoger · November 12, 2002 1:04AM

The devices I was referring to were sound, modem, video. The modems we used to put into HP's were some $4 junk by a company none of us had ever heard of. Some of the nvidia cards, were TNT vanta 64s. I believe that was a sort of low-ball, version of the already pitiful TNT m64. Compaq's used to store their BIOS data on a special HD partition. Don't ask me why.

need some help from the PC experts, please

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