Windows ME machine won't boot.

[beachcomber19]

The machine in question is an HP XE783 minitower, with a 750Mhz CPU and originally 64MB of RAM. It has a Windows ME OS.

Just prior to the issue discussed here, I was installing a PCI card onto the mother board. The card contains a jack for an Ethernet cable, which plugs into the modem, which connects to the cable. I got it all working. No problem

As stated above, the original memory was 64 MB, in one module. Just before the upgrade, I upgraded it to 128 MB by replacing the one existing module with another. After it was all working, I decided I wanted to put the original module in the second slot on the mboard. I had decided against this originally because of the difficulty of accessing the second slot.

After a few minutes, I finally got the second module installed. Upon booting, there was nothing. No display to the monitor (although I heard some crackling), no dos prompt, no error messages, no anything. The fan is still running and the light on the hard disk occasionally lights up, but that's the extent of it. I have no way of running utilities, because I am unable to use the devices to run them.

This leads me to one of two conclusions. The first is that I picked up a virus when I first connected to the cable provider, and it corrupted files that are used to boot. The second is that there is a hardware failure somewhere, either on the mboard, or elsewhere. Perhaps I damaged something when I attempted to install the second memory module on the board.

I actually pulled the hard disk and put it on a known to be good system, and the file system is there. It actually half way booted, but I think the processor on the computer I put it on was slower than what ME needed.

Is there something I can do to determine which of the two things have happened? If it is a virus, how can I get the hard drive back to display at least a command prompt, at which point I can run some utilities. I would prefer to find out if I can save the disk.

In ruling out one more possibility, I put a hard drive (although Win98) known to be good on the machine in question and booted, and got the same hanging result. On sort of a side note, what role do the BIOS play in all of this. I know they sort of direct the initial load of the OS among other functions. If they are corrupt due to a virus, can they be reset?

Any info anyone can offer would be much appreciated.

Thanks

[glc]

Remove both memory modules, reinsert just one of them, make sure it's not backwards and it's fully seated. Reseat all other cables and cards, you may have knocked something loose.

[beachcomber19]

Thanks for the feedback. In looking at the wires, the only bundle of wires coming off the power supply that is not plugged in anywhere is a cluster containing a blue, a yellow, and two black wires. It has a female connector on the end of it with very small holes.

There is also a cluster of pins standing straight up on the mother board, in the area of the memory modules. The cluster is 10 pins wide by 2 high. There is another connector on 8 pins of the top row, and no connector on the bottom. The cluster has writing on both the top and bottom of it.

Above the top row are the words Rest PLed HDLed Pwr. The word under the bottom row are Speaker, Exsmi, Klock, Mled. Does that cluster of wires sound like it would go somewhere into that cluster of pins. Is there somewhere I can get a diagram to verify this?

[Panama Red]

Those pins are the front panel pins and the connector most likely connects to them. Rest = Reset, PLed = Power LED, HDLed = Hard Drive Led, and Pwr = Power. The Power pins connect to the front panel power switch. Take a look at the wires coming off that connector and follow them back to the front panel. That should give you an inidication of which ones go where.

[beachcomber19]

Thanks to the two posters that have responded so far. The PC still has the issue that I wrote about in my first posting. I have tried several different approaches to seeing if I can get it to boot. Those include:

1) Removing the memory, booting both with memory and no memory installed
2) Unhooking each of the three ribbon cables one at a time (booting each time)
3) Removed the PCI card

I am in the process now of trying to find someone with the same model, so I can see what's up with that one. If I exhaust all roads, I will proably take it in to someone that does this kind of troubleshooting.

Just to clarify about the front panel pins, there is already a 7 pin connector on it. There are three balck wires, and one each of red, yellow, and green. The 7th pin is a blank spot.

The other four wire connector that I mentioned barely reaches that panel, and makes me think there is somewhere else it goes, if anywhere at all. Ther are also no loose wires hanging anywhere that look like they should be plugged in.

If anyone has any more ideas, please pass them on.

Thanks everyone.

[beachcomber19]

I found this on HPs website, but am still unsure what I am missing.
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/g...cname=bph07170

[GaryRouth]

Hi beachcomber

It would seem that your first trouble was linked to incompatibility between the two memory modules.

It's also possible that the trouble is now compounded a bit by having booted from that hard drive while it was in another system (this isn't a wonderful thing for a system - it tries to detect all the hardware changes, & shuffle drivers accordingly).

There's also the possibility that cables are no longer in the right places. And that static discharge may have damaged some of the components while you worked inside the case.

If you're uncertain of how the basic cables are connected for various parts, see the tutorials available through the menus on the home page here at PC Mechanic. Most any of the basics are covered in the guides and articles found there.

If you're confident that cables and parts are plugged in properly, here' a troubleshooting list.
A) Get diagnostic tools
B) Try booting from removable media (floppy/CD-rom)
C) Run diagnostics on memory & hard drive
D) Try to boot to Safe Mode from the hard drive.
E) From Safe Mode, use System Restore to return to a pre-upgrade restore point.

Get your tools first:
-> a bootable WinMe diskette ( http://www.bootdisk.com )
-> a bootable MemTest86 diskette ( http://www.memtest.org )
-> a bootable hard drive diagnostic diskette ( hard disk manufacturer's website )
-> a bootable WinMe Installation CD

[you might not need the WinMe diskette or CD if things go well - they are for if things go badly]

And remember, whenever working inside a computer case, keep the power off and the power cord unplugged.

Now try:
1) Have only the original memory module plugged into its original memory slot.
2) Have the original hard drive back in its original case, with the cables attached Ok.
3) Press the F1 key as the system is powered on to enter Bios Setup.
4) You should see Setup Menus such as "Main, Advanced, Power, Boot, Exit".
5) Check that the info on the Main screen looks OK (time, date, IDE device listing, amount of system RAM listed)
6) Go to the "BOOT" menu, and select "Boot Device Priority". Set the floppy as first boot device, the CD-ROM as the second, and the hard drive as the third.
7) Put the MemTest86 diskette in the floppy drive.
8) Go to the "EXIT" menu, and select "Exit Saving Changes".
9) The system should reboot into the MemTest86 memory diagnostics. Let them run through all the tests a few times. If all is well, exit.
10) Put the hard drive diagnostics diskette in the drive, and reboot to run the hard drive diagnostics.
11) If all is well with the hardware, exit.
12) Reboot, this time tapping the F8 key as the system is starting up to enter Safe Mode.
13) If you can enter Safe Mode successfully, find the System Restore tool in your Accessories/System Tools folder, run it, choosing a restore point from prior to the upgrade troubles.

If you were born under a lucky star - this will work.

Don't be surprised if it doesn't, and let us know at what point things didn't work, or what error messages you received.

If you'd like to check out the main page for that system on the Hp support site (to check it's memory specifications, for instance), here's the link for that http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/s...81921&lang=en&

Best of luck
. . . Gary

[glc]

System restore in WinME is directly accessible from the Safe Mode desktop.

[beachcomber19]

Thanks for the responses. As far as getting to a point where I am able to run any kind of diagnostics, I haven't been able to get there. One of three things has happened here.

1) I had two incompatible memory modules on the board at the same time and the machine wigged out and blew something. The original module was 64 Mb. I removed it and put in a 128 Mb module. After it (the LAN cable slot install) was all working, and it was working, I readded the 64 Mb module. All of my issues started after this original module was reloaded.

2) I dischaged some static electricity onto the board, shorting out something.

3) When I was reaching around inside the case to install the 64 Mb module into a very awkward spot I may have popped out a cable. In inspecting the case, I see one connector that is not plugged in, but am unsure if it should be. It is the 4-wire one that I described in the original post. If that goes somewhere I may be back in business.

I have this sinking feeling that the answer is #1. If I am unable to figure this out in a reasonable amount of time, I will cut my losses and search out a new machine to work on. This one is six years old, and could stand to be replaced.

Thanks again,

Martin

[GaryRouth]

Hi again

Did you try booting with only one memory module in yet? If not, try that (you can use the procedure I mentioned earlier, if you'd like).

The four-wire connector that you mention isn't likely to hinder your system from booting.
1) If it is coming from the power supply, it's likely an extra connector for an extra floppy drive.
2) If the wire is coming from an optical (CD or DVD) drive, or from a sound card, or from one of the two four-pin sound connectors on your motherboard - it's just a cable that runs from your sound device (either onboard sound chip or a sound card) to your optical drive. Only necessary for certain types of playback - not involved in booting.
3) If the wire is coming from a bundle of other wires running from the front of the computer case to the "front panel connectors" on the motherboard, it's likely the connector for the speaker - not necessary for booting, but very helpful in troubleshooting: if the speaker isn't connected, you won't be able to hear the helpful beeps it makes when your computer starts up. [One beep means the hardware has passed group of basic self tests called the POST (Power On Self Test)]. More beeps indicate hardware trouble - the beep code indicates where the detected problem is (if you hear such a sequence of beeps, post that information here - and you can find the beep codes for your motherboard on the hp support website.

You had the right hp webpage for your motherboard in your earliest post. In the chart on that page, the front panel connectors are item #30 ["PANEL"], and the sound-to-optical connectors for your onboard sound are items #14 ["CD-IN"] and #15 ["AUX-IN"].

If you can't get the system to boot from anything at all (not even a bootable floppy or bootable CD), something is indeed either connected incorrectly, or faulty. At that point you can try Hal's basic troubleshooting procedure for non-booting systems (it was originally written for new builds, but it applies just as well to older systems that fail after upgrades, like yours) --> http://forum.pcmech.com/showthread.php?t=12753

If you feel you aren't familiar enough with hardware to go through those steps, see if you have a helpful acquaintance that can help out. You are right that you wouldn't want to spend much on a repair (and professional help can be expensive). You have a good chance that the system is still usable - especially since it was fine just a few days ago [and you didn't smell anything burning! ].

Best of luck
. . . Gary

[P.S. ...if you can get the system to boot from a CD, and the hardware checks out OK, but the Safe Mode System Restore doesn't fix things - at that point you can try either an "over-the-top" reinstall (bit of a long shot in your case) http://forum.pcmech.com/showthread.php?t=70846 , or run your Hp Recovery/Restore Disk that came with the system]

[EFG Tech]

Windows Me was conceived as a quick one-year project that served as a stopgap release between Windows 98 and Windows XP. As a result, Windows Me was not acknowledged as a unique OS along the lines of 95 or 98. Windows Me was widely and sometimes unfairly criticised for serious stability issues and for lacking real mode DOS support, to the point of being referred to as the "Mistake Edition". If it's possible I would upgrade to Windows XP

XP Requirements

Minimum:
233 MHz CPU *
64 MB of RAM (may limit performance and some features) *
1.5 GB of available hard disk space *
Super VGA (800 x 600) or higher-resolution video adapter and monitor
CD-ROM or DVD drive
Keyboard and Microsoft Mouse or compatible pointing device

Recommended:
300 MHz CPU *
128 MB of RAM *
1.5 GB of available hard disk space *
Super VGA (800 x 600) or higher-resolution video adapter with at least 8 MB of video RAM and monitor
CD-ROM or DVD drive
Network adapter
Sound card and speakers
Keyboard and Microsoft Mouse or compatible pointing device

End of support for Windows 98 and Windows Me

July 11, 2006 will bring a close to Extended Support for Windows 98, Windows 98 Second Edition, and Windows Me as part of the Microsoft Lifecycle Policy. Microsoft will retire public and technical support, including security updates, by this date.


Microsoft is retiring support for these products because they are outdated and can expose customers to security risks. We recommend that customers who are still running Windows 98 or Windows Me upgrade to a newer, more secure Microsoft operating system, such as Windows XP, as soon as possible.

Customers who upgrade to Windows XP report improved security, richer functionality, and increased productivity.

[glc]

EFG, this is a forum for fixing problems with ME, let's advise people accordingly. Just because you and others perceive it as a bad OS does not mean that everyone should just throw it away.

[EFG Tech]

July 11, 2006 will bring a close to Extended Support for Windows 98, Windows 98 Second Edition, and Windows Me as part of the Microsoft Lifecycle Policy. Microsoft will retire public and technical support, including security updates, by this date.

I thought that giving someone advice that an OS will no longer be supported by the manufacturer was good advice. Also I have worked on many computers with ME and it’s been the customer’s choice to throw it away after they get tired of putting out money to a Tech to fix an unstable machine. The first thing I advise someone is that $89 for XP Home is a lot cheaper than taking it to a shop or letting a technician charge you a hourly rate. I have turned down jobs because I am honest with people and tell them it would be easier and cheaper to install the upgrade.

[EFG Tech]

SYMPTOMS

When you try to restore a checkpoint that you created after September 8, 2001 in Windows Millennium Edition, the restoration does not work after you restart your computer. You may also receive the following error message: Restoration Was Unsuccessful

Click Here for more information >>>>>>>http://support.microsoft.com/kb/290700/en-us

[glc]

I happen to share your opinion of ME, but not everyone else does. The point is, we try to help people fix what they have - can I make it any clearer than that? Please don't post in the ME forum if all you are going to say is get rid of it. Thank you for the link to the hotfix to fix System Restore - that is something I was not aware of and is VERY useful information.

[EFG Tech]

All I was doing was giving my opinion people can agree or disagree with it, and I hope that it is OK to voice my opinion in this forum on what ever subject I want to, as long as I follow the rules of the forum. I came to this forum thinking it was a really good place to hang out and I have recommended it to some of my friends. I am done with the ME OS subject so are we cool now?

[glc]

Absolutely - now let's get back to helping the thread starter with the problem - if we ever get any feedback from Gary's last post from a couple weeks ago.

[Chris in U.K.]

Hi Beachcomber,

you stil need help with this?
It sounds kind of familiar.....

Chris

[chuck4456]

Did you (by chance) crack the memory modules? It isn't that hard to do. All it takes is a hairline crack...................................................