HAVE I BEEN HIT BY MBLASTER?

August 27, 2003 | Me

[GYPSY286]

I was using my computer last evening and suddenly it froze up. Could not even use the mouse. I tried to use Control, Alt, Delete but it did not work either. I had to shut the computer off. I waited about 5 minutes and turned it back on. When I did, a statement OPERATING SYSTEM NOT FOUND appeared. I used my system recovery disks provided by HP and then went immediately to MS to download the updates. After the first update downloaded it was necessary to reboot. So I did, and got the same message OPERATING SYSTEM NOT FOUND again. Is this the MBlaster or is my HP dying? I am not computer savy in HOW the computer works although I'm ok with using a variety of software programs. I downloaded the system recovery disks again and a message came up that because my computer was not shut down properly, the system was going to check for errors. It was only on the 65K cluster out of 2.5 million late last night, so I left it on all night. This morning it was only on the 174,500 cluster with one BAD cluster found. Advice from computer savy experts out there would be very much appreciated.

[steve50]

^P.S.....Thanks

[Mr. Quarterpanel]

(Sigh!) Indeed, the prognosis is poor.

When you could get it to work, could you use the floppy at all? They are cheap and cheesy these days. You might try dropping $20 and putting in a new one. It's a gamble, but if you are determined to save it, it will cost you some time.

Otherwise.....

[RISU]

Reinstall windows over the top of the previous installation.

The likelyhood you need new hardware is about zero! Don't let this "force" you to "buy".

It is probably a corrupted Master Boot Record (MBR), because someone somewhere was trying to take "Remote Control" of your machine, and modifying the MBR is the way they do that.

Another option is to use two hard drives and keep only the Operating System in the first one. That way you can wipe the entire syustem off the first drive and reinstall it without losing data and oprograms stored below in drive two.

Use "ZoneAlarm" (free) and goto Gibson's site "GPC>COM" to learn how to protect your machine and test it for vulnerability to "Remote Administration", which is the curse we are living under right now.

[steve50]

I might try a floppy, the old one seemed to have fits ocassionally. If it doesn't work I can always pick up a motherboard bundle and throw some kind of Frankstein monster together.

I'd like to have a box with my old W98 on it, I could find my way around it better than this %&@) XP.

Thanks again Mr. Q

[Cultural Jihad]

and goto Gibson's site "GPC>COM" to learn how to protect your machine and test it for vulnerability to "Remote Administration", which is the curse we are living under right now.

That would be www.grc.com, not gpc.com!

[Woodman]

I'll chime in with it's the hard drive. If you can't run the OEM recovery program, I would buy a new one install it, restore the OS Make the OLD Drive a slave and reinstall it. You "MAY" be able to retrieve something from the old drive, but I wouldn't bet the bank on it.

A new system can be had for about $400 so I wouldn't spend money on any fast big drive unless the computer is at least above a 1 Gig system, otherwise a 20-40 GB Drive can be had for about $30.

[dinasour]

The drive might have crashed, and you may have lost everything.

However, if the operating system files have been corrupted, or you have a bad disk controller, the data files that you want may still be there.

If you replace your current c: drive, install (or have someone install) the old one as drive d: and see what's you can get.

Be careful that a repair shop doesn't just reformat the drive old drive as a matter of course.

[Jambe]

If I might borrow this thread for a sec. My old box started not recognising floopy, D drive, mouse or keyboard. Had to go into safe mode and remove them in device manager, then it would install them and run until the next start up. Motherboard problem?

Sounds like your battery on the motherboard has failed. Each motherboard has a small battery that maintains power to the onboard clock and system configuration memory. These batteries are good for 5-7 years, sometimes less. They can look like a oversized watch battery (size of a quarter or nickle) or may be a different form factor. When your battery goes you motherboard no longer knows what type of hard disk is in your system and other critical start-up info. Newer motherboards can probe the hard drive to obtain that info.

Suggest you replace your CMOS memory battery first.

[Lunatic Fringe]

Definitely NOT a virus. This is a hard drive problem. Get a new one.

[steve50]

I've been told that might be the case. It was 6 or so years old when it started, couldn't find a CMOS battery for it tho. ASUS P2B board if you got any suggestions.

[KansasConservative1]

My I suggest.. based on your stated lack of computer experience. I would recommend that you go to compusa or equivilent and buy a maxstore or Western Digital 40 - 80 Gig HD (Should be plenty for average user) and have them install it for you (sometimes for free) as well as loading up your HP OS etc (may cost some money). On this thread everyone will debate what drive and how to install. I think you need to get running again and unless you have a ton of time to learn a new skill, let compusa or a savvy friend help you get through this. KC1

[derlauerer]

I've been told that might be the case. It was 6 or so years old when it started, couldn't find a CMOS battery for it tho. ASUS P2B board if you got any suggestions.

What is the type of the CMOS battery in your machine? (One of my PCs is an HP Pavilion 6370Z. It has an ASUS P2B98-XV motherboard, which takes a standard DL2032 CMOS battery).

CMOS batteries are usually standard. Have you tried Googling for the battery designation? I would be surprised if it, or a replacement, were not carried by, for example, Staples, CompUSA or Radio Shack.

You might also try Googling the motherboard designation on ASUS's North American Site. They have manuals for most of their products, including at least some OEMed models.

[steve50]

I tried ASUS at the time but didn't find anything. We got Radio Shack around here. I'll see if there are any markings on the CMOS and take a look. Pretty good old box, I'd like to save it. Thanks

[L_Von_Mises]

Someone else suggested that it may be a corrupt master boot record or partition table. Either one will give you the same symptoms. There are viruses out there that will corrupt your boot record so if you have any AV programs and have the emergency disk or bootable cd that might help if it was caused b a virus.

From a startup disk can you access the drive? If so then you should be able to get any important data off of it. I have had drives fail and when they do - they do. You can't access them at all.

Before you go out and get a new hard disk I would first try to get any data off it that you can that you might need. Then see if you can locate a utility that will repair it (TestDrive supposedly works well). If you can't do that then once you get any important data off it then boot up using a win98 startup disk and run fdisk /mbr then format it. This will create a new MBR and you are now starting from scratch. You might also want to run a low-level format on it using the drive utilities from the manufacturer of your hard disk.

I have corrupted my MBR on more than one occasion. After that happened the first time I went out and bought a good tape drive and now regularly back up everything onto tape.

A new hard disk is your last resort. If it is your drive you stll may be able to get the data off of it - http://www.midwayisd.org/PDFs/help/200ways.pdf

[L_Von_Mises]

After reading your post again I noticed that my neighbor had the exact same symptoms - can't find OS, diskcheck ran forever and never completed.

It was a laptop and he had no floppy and he did not have any OS CDs or recovery CDs so I decided it wasn't worth my aggravation to try to deal with it. He had ME on his system and ended up taking it to a local shop and the guy charged almost $100 to reinstall ME. For that he could have just bought XP and installed that instead.

With the xp disks you may be able to fix it. It could even be something as simple as your boot.ini file being corrupted. Is your disk ntfs or fat32? If it ntfs you won't be able to see the drive except with the xp startup disks. I had that happen a few years ago with Win2K and I called MS and they walked me through fixing it using the installation CD. He sent me an e-mail describing the steps. If you think that will help I can search for it and freepmail you what he sent me.

[GYPSY286]

Thank you for your input. As noted in my post, I let the computer run through the C drive for errors since it was not shut down properly. When I got home from work yesterday, it had completed its run and there was a message that physical damage had been noticed, that I should copy my files as soon as possible and that failure of my hard drive was inniment. I had previously gone to the HP website and found directions about the BIOS and problems with receiving such messages. Part of the directions told me to turn off the computer, open the case holding the hard drive, disconnect the IGA cable and turn the machine back on. When I turned the modem around to do so, I discovered one of the cables was loose and was barely holding on by one prong. I also found my dog's tennis ball in the midst of all the cable wires. Needless to say, I am really embarrassed and, of course, my dog has been grounded for a month! Once I fixed the cable, the computer ran ok although it froze up twice and I had to reboot.