Boy - can days like today get right up your nose!! At the weekend we inherited a perfectly functioning computer from Paul's parents, but it was running Win95, only had a 2GB hard drive and was full of junk!! So toady I set out to add another hard drive and a faster CDRom, plug in a USB card and upgrade it from Windows 95 to 98!! and successfully managed to de-funk the thing completely!! How is that? All I had to do essentially was plug in the new drives to the IDE cables, slot in the USB card and do the upgrade, but no - now the thing won't even boot!! Earlier this evening it was ALMOST running OK (it was finally recognising the A drive, which it seemed to stop doing almost as soon as I took the back off, and accepting the boot disk) except that it wouldn't recognise the CDRom Drive for no apparent reason, so it wouldn't read the Windows CD - so I re-installed the old slower CDRom drive - but it didn't recognise that either. I put back the faster one and then it refused to even recognise anything - nope - just a blank screen!! It has consistently refused point blank to acknowledge the presence of another hard-drive (yes I've fiddled with the jumpers in any number of combinations - all to no avail). Unless I disconnect the bigger (4GB) HD altogether it tells me there is no hard drive at all!!
RRRRRRRRR - is all I can say - a whole day WASTED!! And I'm really stumped as to what to do now! All the IDE cables seem to be the right way round, the CDRom drive is powering up OK, but can't be recognised, the A drive has gone AWOL again and now I can't even see what's happening on the screen! The hard drive SOUNDS like it's starting up, but...
Oh - and I managed to stuff up win95 in the process of all the fiddling too, so I'm not even loading in 98 yet, just trying to re-install 95 - thought that MIGHT be an easier starting point, but it seems not!!
Grumpy Mummy, disappointed kids!! I had hoped that I could simple switch the 4GB hard drive from their old PC to the new one - thereby carrying Win98 across with it and all their programs, but it JUST WON'T LET ME!!
Is there any computer whizz out there with any suggestions as to what I might try tomorrow? Jax? Jon? Anyone...?
And just to cheer myself up - I'll post these piccies!!
cow bum (stuffable)
pink bum (wrap)
minki bum
6 comments:
Eek...hardware isn't my thing I'm afraid. Will ask Tim if he's any ideas though :)
Not really Jonathan's thing either, sorry.
Lovely pictures btw :)
Bill says "Check all the connections, connect only the new hard-drive (not cd-Rom). If you have a volt-meter, check the voltages on the power harness (red wire is +5, black middle wires earth, and yellow wire is +12v). If OK, disconnect hard drive and switch the system on and see if you get POST screen (memory test/start-up stuff). If so, go into the BIOS set-up and check that drive parameters are correct, i.e. that the BIOS will support a hard-drive greater than 2GB (should be in manual). also make sure the jumper on the new drive is set to 'master' and if the CD-Rom is on the same cable, is set to 'slave'. Also check the memory chips are properly seated." And his invoice for 25 guineas is in the post ......!!
thanks - Bill - I'll give that a shot, but as yet if I only plug the new hard drive in it is ot even detected. I will def' check the BIOS though - cheeers! :)
Love the nappies, Minkis are my favourites, my dd has a sunshine Minki with her name accross the back which was great fun for 'just-t-shirt-and-nappy hot weather days' last summer.
I'm jut writing today's post, but we have been lapbooking this week and I have added alink to the website with them on - on the left under 'links' :)
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