Removed sound card, now computer won't boot

[ejcelli]

Hi all, I am new to this forum and in need of some help. I hope someone here can help.

I have a Gateway desktop. It's about 3 years old. I use it to make movies so I transfer digitally using the firewire. Well, about 4 months ago the firewire no longer worked. Not sure why, but it wouldn't work. I dealt with it using the USB but only on project where quality didn't matter so much. After experiencing many other issues on the computer due to too much on the drive (I couldn't even defrag), I was told to crash the computer and reinstall. So, I backed everything up, crashed it and reinstalled. Worked AWESOME, but no firewire still.

On a forum for my editing software, someone told me to remove the sound card since the 1394 port is connected to that and put in a temp card. Well, I didn't have a temp card, but wanted the computer to reinstall all the drivers and see what would happen, so I turned off the computer, unplugged everything, removed the card, plugged everything back in and turned it on. The computer did nothing.

It started. I could hear the fans, the HD's, and the CD/DVD drives cycling, but it would not boot. Screen was blank. After a few recycles, I inserted the sound card. It made a bunch of noise like it detected the card, but it still didn't boot. Turned it off and on again. Same thing. A bunch of recycles, no real boot.

I inserted the recovery disk, but it did nothing as well. The drives wouldn't read it. It just kept recycling. I have no idea what to do at this point and no one understands why removing the sound card would have caused such a problem. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

Elizabeth

[EzyStvy]

Double check all the connections inside the pc. Odds are you accidently unplugged something..

[ejcelli]

Thanks for the reply. I can't see anything else unplugged. It all looks good. It really wasn't that hard to pull out the card. All I did was pull it out. I didn't unplug anything but I looked just in case. This is mind boggling. I don't understand. Thank you!

Elizabeth

[tempus]

Originally Posted by ejcelli Thanks for the reply. I can't see anything else unplugged. It all looks good. It really wasn't that hard to pull out the card. All I did was pull it out. I didn't unplug anything but I looked just in case. This is mind boggling. I don't understand. Thank you! Elizabeth

Sounds like the hard d rive may be dead. What you can try is to disconnect all optical drives and the hrd drive and see what happens. It should get as far as no bootable drive detected.

[ejcelli]

I know that's what it sounds like, but why would pulling the sound card with no power crash the HD? Will I be able to get data off it? I have a place that is coming out to check it now, so that's good. Had a free coupon for a diagnostic. Not sure what they will actually charge to fix it. This sucks! Thanks!

[tempus]

Originally Posted by ejcelli I know that's what it sounds like, but why would pulling the sound card with no power crash the HD? Will I be able to get data off it? I have a place that is coming out to check it now, so that's good. Had a free coupon for a diagnostic. Not sure what they will actually charge to fix it. This sucks! Thanks!

it may be coincidence. But in the previous post you did have an issue with the drive not defragmenting. That may have been the start of a more serious problem. Or the motherboard may be dead. When you pulled out the sound card did you observe anti-static precautions?