Unsolved
This post is more than 5 years old
17 Posts
0
7744
September 25th, 2010 19:00
Booting Issue tried everything
I have a Dimension 8100 XP System that I use for music composition at a work station in my music studio. Been a great computer until yesterday. I am now on my office 'puter so that I can ask for help.
It booted up and then went to a blue screen with the warning, etc. So I chose to restart. Well, that was a mistake. Now all I get is the F1 F2 message. I attempted the F2 - turned on the caps, scroll and num locks and did the ALT + E, ALT + F, ALT + B. It then went to a screen that said performing automatic IDE configuration which then goes to the F1 F2 message.
I have read many posts here about how to check for issues. I've unplugged from surge strip and plugged directly into wall outlet. I tried the F12 which for 1 time only brought up the blue screen again with this error:
STOP: 0X0000007B (OXF9C49528 OXC0000034 OX00000000 OX00000000)
I shut it down and tried again this time it did not get to the blue screen - just went to the performing automatic IDE configuration and F1 F2.
The lights on the back are as follows: G G G Y
In the set up the Boot give me only 1 choice: Floppy drive. I don't have a Floppy start-up emergency disk since I had a tech person install the XP and he did not provide a disk. (my mistake).
The computer I'm on right now does not have a floppy drive so to download a start-up would be pointless - right?
Think I should just give up and buy a new 'puter?
shesagordie
12 Elder
•
46K Posts
0
September 25th, 2010 20:00
musicmom
GGGY diagnostic lights could indicate a possible motherboard, or hard drive failure.
Try running Dell Diagnostics extended test on the hard drives. The procedure for this should be in your Dell Dimension 8100 Owners Manual.
Is the power button LED, solid green, blinking green, solid amber, blinking amber?
Dell's Dimension 8100 Diagnostic Guide,
Bev.
musicmom
17 Posts
0
September 25th, 2010 21:00
Thanks for your help.
Okay, the LED is solid green.
Got some other error messages since I posted. This time it told me to hit F8 and start in Safe Mode. I did that. It booted up but within a couple of minutes it crashed again. So, repeated the same way and instead of starting in Safe Mode I chose to start with last known ... It is now up and running. I am doing a virus scan now. I did a check disk test and it came up OK. I beginning to think that either I have a low battery or I need to open up and recheck all my connections and maybe remove dust bunnies. For now, I'm letting the virus scan work and then am shutting down for the night.
RoHe
12 Elder
•
45.2K Posts
•
172.6K Points
0
September 25th, 2010 22:00
7B is the standard error message when XP isn't recognizing a hard drive (correctly). So either the drive failed, as Bev suggested, BIOS has the wrong settings, or possibly the boot sector on the hard drive is corrupted or infected.
Reboot and press F2 to open BIOS setup. Make sure the Primary Hard Drive 0 option is set to AUTO. The scroll down further and make sure the IDE Drive Interface option is also set to AUTO. Save the changes and exit setup. See if it boots now.
If not, go back into BIOS setup and find the Boot Sequence Option. If your hard drive is listed first, change the sequence so your optical drive is first. Put a bootable CD (eg, Dell Windows XP Reinstallation CD) into the drive and close the drawer. Save the change in BIOS and exit setup. If it boots from the CD, that suggests your hard drive failed.
You'll have to install a new hard drive, load Windows and drivers, all Microsoft updates, and your software. Then you can reinstall the old drive as a secondary drive, and -hopefully- copy off any personal files that aren't already backed up on external media.
Ron
RoHe
12 Elder
•
45.2K Posts
•
172.6K Points
0
September 25th, 2010 22:00
Me again...
Doesn't your optical drive show up in the boot sequence?
If nothing helps, before you replace the hard drive, power off and unplug. Press/hold the power button on the tower for ~15 sec. Open the case and remove the motherboard battery. Press/hold power button again for ~30 sec. Reinstall the battery (right-side-up!) and see if it boots from the hard drive now. And if the battery is more than ~2-3 years old, this might be a good time to replace it with a fresh 3-volt CR2032 coin cell battery (~$2 at discount stores).
Ron
musicmom
17 Posts
0
September 28th, 2010 14:00
Thanks to all of you who have attempted to help. I decided to save what is left of the life of the oldie until I can purchase a new one and transfer all of my music files to the new one.