| Author |
Message |
Sam Schreck
DieHard
ACT
vvt-i JZZ31
Posts: 630
Reg: 07-2005
|
This other computer's driving me nutts!!! It's an IBM Netvista P4, about 3 years old with 2000 pro. I can't boot it up as it keep telling me there's a "media error - check cable," "operating system not found." I've checked everyting about 20 times. The IDE ribbon's connected right, the power cable's connected to the HDD W.T.F??? In the setup under IDE items, it doesn't show mention of a hard drive "not installed" is all I'm seeing. Obviously it coulb be the HDD but last time I used the PC, about 3 months ago, it was fine. Any help would be great because I'm starting to go a little F'ing crazy.  |
Ryan Rankovic
TryHard
Victoria
Soarer TT GT-TL
Posts: 450
Reg: 07-2005
|
try a different IDE cable |
Daniel Czechowski
DieHard
Western Australia
Soarer GT-T
Posts: 502
Reg: 07-2005
|
Or the HDD could be stuffed, can you try the HDD on another comp perhaps? |
Peter Nitschke
JunkFilterer
South Australia
GT4.0 V8
Posts: 3753
Reg: 11-2004
|
Or the IDE channel might be stuffed. |
Tom Kneebone
TryHard
WA
factory 5 spd TT : Auto TT
Posts: 217
Reg: 10-2005
|
Hmm, Does the motherboard have swollen electrolytic capacitors?
What is the model of the HDD, Had some 20 GB Maxtor's that were fitted to a lot of these that had a known firmware issue. ( they fall over, stop detecting correctly) there is a utility for a supposed fix but it did not work for me.
If under the bios it does not show the detected HDD then you need to try another drive |
Jeff Smith
TryHard
NSW
TT Limited :-)
Posts: 142
Reg: 07-2005
|
It could even be the ram sticks if you have two maybe one has failed this happen'd to me a year ago(same prob).Try all p.c.i slots and a.g.p slot make shaw they are not loose it's funny how a short will cause mayhem, if that dosn't work the bios could be an answer too! maybe a setting could be rong(if you know your way around the bios check to see if the motherboard detects ide channel one).As ryan stated Ide cable could be stuffed,worse case Ide channel one is stuffed on the motherboard. |
Rob Andreacchio
Moderator
Victoria
UZZ31 V8 / JZZ30 TT
Posts: 1370
Reg: 01-2005
|
No Jeff.. worst case is Motherboard, CPU, HDD, Graphics Card, RAM, and ROM's are farked!! 
and his external speakers ;) |
Jeff Smith
TryHard
NSW
TT Limited :-)
Posts: 143
Reg: 07-2005
|
 That's gold  |
Steven Nanevski
TryHard
NSW
JZZ30 Twin Turbo
Posts: 256
Reg: 07-2005
|
The problem is always between the chair and the keyboard |
Adam Foster
TryHard
SA
SC400 Limited GT
Posts: 264
Reg: 07-2005
|
try replacing the ide cable at first, as it is common for the ide cable to become faulty over a period of time or if it has been bent and twisted to many time. if that doesnt work try running the hard drive on the secondary ide controller just to make sure its not the ide controller itself. if that doesnt work, if you got a spare hard drive swap hdds and see if there is any difference. none of these work i would say probably ram, so if you got some spare ram swap it and see, if no difference your motherboard would be more than likely shot as cpus just normally die, they either work or they dont |
Jason Kingsmill
DieHard
NSW
UZZ31 Soarer V8
Posts: 541
Reg: 07-2005
|
Tom Kneebone wrote on Friday, March 17, 2006 - 06:58 pm:Hmm, Does the motherboard have swollen electrolytic capacitors?
Yup - I reckon that's your problem.
IBM had a HUGE problem with faulty caps in a lot of their models, but mainly NetVista's, Symptoms ranged from switching off intermittently, to RAM errors, to no IDE device detection....
You will be able to tell by looking, as usually the caps bluged to twice their original size!
Of course, it could be the HDD too. |
Matthew Sharpe
DieHard
North Island
3.0 GT
Posts: 544
Reg: 10-2005
|
OS not found with Win2k is most often caused by someone deleting one of the required boot files from the root directory of the boot partition. (Cant for the life of me remember what the file name is) - or the same file becoming corrupt - you dont normally get that media error message though.
I'd say reload Win2k and all will be well. |
Sam Schreck
DieHard
ACT
vvt-i JZZ31
Posts: 632
Reg: 07-2005
|
Thanks for the suggestions guys. I've tried a couple of IDE cables, no success. I'll throw the HDD into another PC on Monday and see if it's ok. Otherwise, I'll just burn the bastard, could be fun. |
Tom Kneebone
TryHard
WA
factory 5 spd TT : Auto TT
Posts: 219
Reg: 10-2005
|
What is the exact wording of the error?
OS not found indicates the drive has been detected and a boot partition was found. No HDD results in a no boot device or similar error.
"NTOSkernal is missing or corrupt" error
Corruption of the boot.ini can cause this.
Caps do not need to be swollen, if the top is not flat then they are sus. 100% failure of IBM machines at a client of mine,( Netvistas x 12, E series server x1) due to failed caps. For the cost of 4 caps (which I already had ) I repaired the server which would not boot but is now quite stable. |
Sam Schreck
DieHard
ACT
vvt-i JZZ31
Posts: 636
Reg: 07-2005
|
1. 'Media test failure check cable'
2. 'Operating system not found' |
Mike Bradberry
TryHard
Queensland
V8 Limited
Posts: 149
Reg: 07-2005
|
When you've tried changing the doovalackies and the whatsamacallits I'd go for the high end gadget next to the googleplug. |
Ken Cornell
TryHard
Western Australia
4.0GT V8 Soarer
Posts: 129
Reg: 01-2006
|
Yeh, that always fixes it!
 |
Tom Kneebone
TryHard
WA
factory 5 spd TT : Auto TT
Posts: 220
Reg: 10-2005
|
Sam Schreck wrote on Sunday, March 19, 2006 - 08:52 am:'Media test failure check cable'
I've only seen this type of error wrt CD's. I have also seen CD Drives cause this type of issue, unplug the CD and try. |
Vinh Bui
TryHard
NSW
94 UZZ31 (V8) / 96 JZZ30 (TT)
Posts: 308
Reg: 07-2005
|
Sam, is the HDD the only one in your PC? If so, take out the HDD and set the jumper to Cable Select. There have been instances where the Master/Slave jumper setting caused this error message to occur. Also, take out your CMOS battery for about 2-3 minutes then put it back in. If all else fails, your hard drive has probably gone to god.
The second error message mainly occurs when your BOOT.INI file becomes corrupted in some way, like Matthew had said. If this turns out to be the problem, easiest way to really fix this is to just re-install Windows leaving the file system in tact. It will just rewrite over the old Windows system files, but all your previous files will still remain.
Then again, the second error message could've occurred 'cause of the initial first error. Hope this helps. |
Benny Gammelmark
Goo Roo
NSW
V8 UZZ31
Posts: 1408
Reg: 07-2005
|
Get a bootable CD and check the problems then. If it's a HDD error then you will not see it. If it's not then you can fix the BOOT.INI file. |
Paul Irwin
Trader
NSW
GT-T (1JZ-GTE)
Posts: 147
Reg: 07-2005
|
could be worse.
my water cooled pc sprung a leak once right where the reservior pipe joins the return from the GPU waterblock...
water sprayed around and killed a CD-ROM, ram, Motherboard, and Video card hasn't been the same since (unstable but still works). |
Dan McColl
DieHard
Victoria
UZZ-32 V8 Soarer #138
Posts: 982
Reg: 07-2005
|
Use dry ice. |
Paul Irwin
Trader
NSW
GT-T (1JZ-GTE)
Posts: 152
Reg: 07-2005
|
if you get the temps below ambient you have to seal all the components that get cold to prevent the condensation from killing them.
water cooling has been enough for me to date. |
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