argh big trouble for me

Detox, In my experiance most Motherboards are delivered "jumperless" The BIOS is set to run jumperless as the default setting, If you have the MB manual it will show you what those settings are on the MB if, however, you do not have a manual go to the MB manufacturers site and download it.
If the manual settings are correct, there should be an option in BIOS to set default settings, these should work. (but in your case ensure that the ATA RAID is selected as this may not be a default setting.
I have had a similar problem to yours some time ago when one of a pair of RAID 0 drives (IBM) failed, really caused havoc with similar type of problems that you appear to have.

What size Power supply are you using & what is the full list of hardware components installed? May help with the diagnosis.

 

I meant indeed toggle the settings in the bios and back to what you think it should be (enable/disable) and look if all the drives are detected properly in the (CMOS?) and the whole overview ..
Couple of days ago one of my working systems had decided to lose a drive as well, so in the bootup i pressed <del> to get in the BIOS to have a look and made it detect that drive again, looked through all settings (as far as i can understand them, which is not all of them i must admit) save and continue reboot and all seemed ok.
In the worst case if nothing helps that way i let it go back to default and start all over again (noting down first everything how it was, after pressing "default" looking at possible changes, trying again, etc.)
In fact we should print all such things and put in a pc logbook, but euhhhmmm yeah.... too happy when it functions again to think of such things.........
I don't like to take off cables or cards, as flatcables break so easily so if you do this --- which after the BIOS trying would be my next step too, first trying to press everything extra tight in it's proper place, after moving a bit the cables as there might be a broken cable indeed (sharp folds in flatcables for instance) and see if that makes any difference.
I was told never ever to take off the fans, as they "glue" themselves more or less to the processor and if you take them out and put them back they can be a bit unstable, so better use the compressed air spray.
I think the plastic of an vacuum cleaner can be static as well, see how dust and small objects like wool , hairs stay on it, so of course there are little shocks in the computer; it's rather dusty here as well and i ever bought a small plastic vac especially for this goal but it needs replacement, so good to look at that link for cleaning.

When you reboot from a diskette the system creates one extra virtual smart drive so A and C are still A and C but the others might become one higher or after F comes G for that.
Look with <dir> at the drive's content and you know which is which. Did you miss E:\ btw?
If not necessary to re-install i would wait with that part till the hardware part is really ok and you've been able to look at the drives to know what is still there.
The fact that it does reboot is very hopeful already, so the rebooting might indeed be a lose connection, maybe even just the plug from the power part which wants to be more tight (such a thing it was with my donated pc as well, an electricity wire for one of the drives and the flatcable to that one needed to be pressed more tightly.)
If there was a drive or software error you would have got some error message at the reboot thing, or a registry would have been put back (this is also a possibility to look at! but first look at the hardware side of the problem)
I was told not to touch the board's jumpers or flash anything if i don't know what i'm doing, so i don't know about your blue switches?
Please keep us updagted after all steps mentioned till now how you're doing.
In the last half-way reboot, the screen and sound worked? did you get the "windows startup music"?

 

Detox, don't do anything which might invalidate your warranty.

 

Checkout - well there was only a 1 year labor warranty since it's a totally custom built machine. The year is up but anyway this had to have been my fault it's just too much coincidence and I'm too honest to lie about it ;-)
BTW I'm not implying you suggested I lie; just talking ;-)

anyway the power supply is a 300 watt Intel ; I;ve put the computer in the closet now and hooked the big monitor to the old machine - I'm just far too scared I'll mess something up and that machine was over $2,500 USD - I'm really upset but scared crapless too as I'm a full time student and have no income I won;t be able to make an expensive repair or part-purchase.
ANyway in the hopes it might help someone figure out what this could be I'll put a parts list...

Gigabyte GA-7VRXP motherboard (133)
Athlon 2000 XP CPU
2 sticks of 512 MB PC2100 DDR RAM
Geforce 4/4400
2 120 gig Western Digital 8MB cache hard drives
Sony 52x CD rom
Sony 24x cd-rw

the case came with the power supply (methinks) and is an Antec 601 AW tower case

I don't really think any of this wil make any great ideas come up and I suppose I'm just too paranoid at this point to try much of anything else... ugh hate it kinda feel helpless but wouldn't live with myself if I messed around and ruined my MB or something.

 

Sorry to hear about this. Possibly, you never know, a coincidence with your cleaning. Do you have Norton Utilities or have access to a copy? That would enable you to boot to diagnostics in dos and you can run a few things off the CD itself in a Windows environment. The Disk Doctor would be much faster than the Windows Scandisk with 98se

Also, have you run the System File Checker while in Safe-Boot mode? That's simply Start/Run/SFC - would automatically find any corrupted files.

You never know about things like that....you could have chosen not to clean, tried to boot and the same thing happen. Wouldn't hurt to check and a SFC wouldn't hurt anything.

I know what this computer means to you. Good luck!

John
Luv2BSecure

 

i had similar problem but it good pc start in safe mode that means all is not lost did you try system restore to a priviouse time or maybe if you have go back you can go a day befor the problem acourd.

recently i found one of my ide cables have squash a pin in the mother bord where the cable hooks up.

look at the mother bord where the link to the cable to your c drive and you cd burner ect

unplug look at the pins on the mother bord where the cables go in and link in

see if theres one pin squashed to the side or needs to be bent back in place.

see some times when linking the cd rom cables and the cable to c drive you put the cables bach in to hard or to fast and you sqish a pin out of place and your system isnt conecting properly.

that what i doo check the ide cables links socket thingys on the mother bord make sure a conecting pin aint bent out of place

 

Detox, Nice PC, I also have the Gigabyte 7VRXP
The default (blue) switch settings are as follows: This is the switch block between the CPU and the back of the board.
1 - 4 = off 5 = on
SW1 to the right of the pci cards (middle) Should be on 100MHZ (this can be changed on BIOS to 133 if you are running fast RAM
Boot sector virus scanning should be off when installing windows.
You also have the ability to boot from either of the dual BIOS This is usually acheived automatically but can be done manually.

I have downloaded the manual in PDF format & can send it to you if you are in need of it. Or the link is: http://ftp.gigabyte.com.tw/support/user_pdf/e_7vrxp_1101.pdf

The metod I used when this happened to me was to use my other PC to substitute items from one to the other this enabled me to pin point the problem, I have used this method on many occasions & the main culprits have usually been graohics cards or hard drives. Only one PSU failure

 

Pilli - I checked the manual for the blue switch default settings after I posted that; I've got all my manuals ;-)

I really started feeling li ke a quitter last night and this morning; I think I at least owe it to all the people trying to help me to give it at least another go or two; either tonight or tomorrow I think I'll get it back out and give it another try or 2 or 3 or whatever; just had to stop out of frustration for a bit.

I also found a win98 floppy (labeled by MS, not the same one I made and tried already) in the box I have with all the manauals for parts and drivers disks, etc.... it says on the label it's something like a install disk so if I can't get it running with the software suggestions I've been given here I'll try that; I really don't think it's hardware now because it seemed to recognize all the parts (although I suppose it can recognize something even if its not performing properly)...

I'm in the puter lab at school now and off to my Contemporary Legal Issues Class ; so thanks again everyone and I'll be updating as soon as I plug it in and take another stab.

Luv2b - Don't have Norton at all; SFC (something I knew nothing about) sounds like a very good idea!!

 

I'm running win98se as well, but a dutch version. And you had your original cs-rom as well i think?
Anyway, in case of need, we have email.
My idea was of hardware or cables because you had the one time a screen and the other time not, and then i try first connections and possible broken cables, which you can try by very gently moving them again. In my donated pc are several flatcables with sharp folds, so those were indeed the suspicious ones which with some gentle movement were connecting better, but of course such things should be replaced.
The boot thing halfway, would either look like a hardware thing, either lost files, but i hardly can believe in missing files because of vacuuming the system, or there should have been some shoock because of all that happened by now......
In the SFC that should show up indeed, but i made it a habit if i'm not really sure to ingore changes.
And when the reboot stops and starts over not any error message on screen, just turning black or blue and it goes or .......?
I am just thinking, if you withy the install cd-rom can create a new boot diskette on another system and try it with that?
Doesn't the actual bootdiskette boot at all or is it missing files?
For i have a neutral bootdiskette from which i can email you the files if you need, with that i got the donated pc working, so it does work.

 

Never any error messages at all; but I am gonna try the 3 1/2 inch disk and the SFC (probably tomorrow afternoon) when I get the computer back out and try it again.

 

Wonder if you boot in MSDOS with the diskette and walk through the several disks if they still look familliar to you. Hard to say probably, but you might have a general idea more or less.
Euhmmm did you take out the cards and put them back or did you keep them in their place and just checked the connections of them tight in their slots and the cables all connected tight as well or did you take those off and back again, jumpers etc?
If you do a normal scandisk in the safe mode, not the advanced and deep scanning but normal, do you come through that part then without any problems? And did you disable the antivirus from the autostart for this occasion and maybe more programs you don't really need this moment, to see if you can get booting then?
I remember that windows has the terrible habit after taking out and in the cards to see them as new hardware items it wants to install again; not always, but it can happen. So this is why i think you should be very aware what is detected in the bios and at the startup in the black screens before/in between starting windows before the music comes. Even a card not well pressed in it's place can cause electrical problems or damage slot or card.
So boot up with your boot diskette and with cd-rom support in dos and see what you find.
If you can get in the safe mode of windows to run the SFC, sounds good.
And you don't hear strange unfamiliar sounds from the fans or other parts, they just run smooth like new?
Did you try to boot without the case on it too? So often a cable needs pushed back better......
If all this has been checked, and your SFC (what you don't know for sure ignore for this time), looks like you could try a repair setup, at which all new detected hardware will be installed as much as possible.
So you still have options before going to the repair shop.
Count the beeps at reboot, look if the lights check ok, etc etc. You're going to succeed!

 

I've been looking into this and apparently a very common cause of yours and similar problems is a duff keyboard or similar! it may be worth pulling out everything non essential and trying that

 

Aiii keyboard...... that's why we asked for the keyboard lights and system sounds a few times. Fingers crossed that you spoke the magic word again!
But can a keyboard cause bootup problems halfway?

 

well the keyboard looks ok it lights uip like normal and it works for going into bios, etc... anyway I've hooked it back up and I've just changed BIOS back to normal and I'm booting into safe mode; then my first attempt ... uh gonna go ahead and post this im in safe mode but my power supply fan is definitely having trouble; makes clicking noises and is trying to turn but doesnt... I gave ita pusha nd it spins a bit but I dont think this is the problem overall...

 

ok power supply fan turning now but noisy; runing SFC and

"setupx.dll" maybe corrupted....... hopefully im on the right road here!

 

err crap now im at a loss i am trying to restore the file from the cd drive (which works as far as opening etc) but the thing doesnt even try to read the cd drive it just says file not found...

 

ROCK! Thanks to the guys who built it; I remembered seeing a WIN98 folder that had WIn98/CAB zip file in it; was able to locate the file there overwriting and trying to not get my hopes too high!


.... trying a normal boot now

 

Argh no dice it appears; starting to spam now but I'm getting into it; have to be one step closer. Trying a normal scandisk; then I think I will try the win98 bootdisk. Checked the connections inside as best as I can; they all seem good to me.

BTW anyone wondering why I couldnt get my graphics card out at first the other day - the monitor cable was plugged into the back of it

 

Aha, power fan, no thread came between it? I'm shy advising from the outside to vacuum it, for dust......
It's a new pc or older?
When a pc is on lots of time the ax gets some space which can cause such things, and if really really nothing is between, it and with machine switched off you could look carefully with a q-tip but hardly touching it at all for dust, as it can get out of balance so easy, so better said not touching the rotator blades, just eventual dust.
Can even help is really nothing is between or close to it to switch on and off in a second time so it might fall back well in it's place.
Don't let it continue if the fan is not working properly in a few seconds or minutes, and certainly not with the ticking noice.
How many system beeps do you get after reboot, before you see things on the screen?
One, two, more beeps? please count them and look at the screen. Nothing new found?
What was with the setupx.dll? lost? corrupt? put it back?


If you look in the "my computer" is the cd-rom drive there? or in windows\explorer, can you read the cd-rom?
maybe you should tell SFC to get the file from (cd-rom)\windows\win98 or how the path was exactly.
I ever copied the whole win98 part on the pc just in case it refuses to read the cd-rom. Does it read other cd's (audio for instance) in case it doesn't read the cd-rom at all?

 

cant seem to make it read the cs rom at all no matter what - computer is only about a year old I think.

The beeps; it gave me one the first time i booted it today but none since then; I have my speakers disconnected but the beeop came from the monitor or the pc that time, should i try speakers?

 

If you want to scandisk win98 in normal mode, make sure you don't have the firewall up (certainly not ZA/ZAPro) and maybe better no AV/AT either in this case.

(our postings crossed, keep that part of win98se install cabs till you need the space if ever)

How's the noice now? and the beeps, and the lights, and boot complete in normal now?
Aha, you tried to take out the soundcard and monitor connected to that, and you had the blank monitor and some more in that area, so make very very sure all that is very tight connected again!

 

getting no beeps and still no normal boot either; i tried to run win98 setup from the folder in the hard drive and it starts but it says it hasn't got enough conventional memory!!!!

system information still shows 1024MB RAM and 96108 MB free on one HD and 11442MB on the other!

84% resources free.. dont get it

 

If you reboot, and get to the bios, is the cd-player installed there?
And there is no place there where you could have switched off system sounds/alerts, i guess?

So in "my computer" and in windows \explorer you see the cd-player?

In my computer > rightclick for properties, the second tab for the installed parts (apperates? i don't know the english term there) is the cd-rom in the list and in the properties there all right? can look for repairing the driver if necessary..... if you did a normal boot or safe mode...
Are all the other parts ok and no warning signs there?

normal boot is ok?

The startup sounds should come from the system speaker, but it can happen because of the soundcard it only sounds via the speakers, worth trying.

How's the fan now? noisy or normal?
Did you make sure before closing the case over it all cables and threads were neatly folded back as they were and no new sharp folds and no cable between fans or other things which can cause all that (so this is exactly why i asked if you got the same startup problems with and without the case closed. And before switching on another time look at all connections on the outside, power, etc.

 

ok; well there is definitely one beep from the system speaker when the big WINDOWS logo pops up ont he blue screen but that's only when I try a normal boot; then it seems to "restart" the bootup on its own... usually the first thing I se on bootup is the graphics card counting its 128 MB memory. so now on normal boot attempts after the beep at the windows logo that scren comes up again; it goes through come of the boot process again then goes to the "last time windows blah blah safe mode?" screen!