help, can't boot, did I crash or is it a virus?

[itchy]

I have a Pentium 233 with only 4 gig hard drive which is probably already full. When I tried to turn it on nothing happened. It won't go past first screen right after it says "Hit delete to enter setup" and then it say WAIT. Nothing happens after that. I tried hitting delete to enter bios and all I get is a black screen with the words "ENTER PASSWORD." I don't know of any password for my machine, if I hit any key it will enter an X and then goes back to trying to boot up again and always stops at WAIT. I've tried the boot up disk, the start up disk, hitting every key I can think of to enter bios and nothing. Pulled out the hard drive and tested it in another computer as a slave and all my stuff is still there but it won't work on this machine, any idea what it could be. Checked to make sure nothing was lose, lights on cd rom, floppy and burner come on fine. Not an expert at this. Thanks

[This message has been edited by itchy (edited 01-24-2001).]

[Randy_tx]

First, pull out the cmos battery (its the round silver thingy...you cant miss it) and wait about 3 minutes....then put it back in. Now you can get into the bios by hitting delete key and set the Default settings for the bios. Now try restarting the computer. It should work now.

[Randy_tx]

Woops........also remember to allow the bios to recognize the hard drive. It's a setting you will see among the bios options.

[itchy]

Hi, and thanks for your help. I tried what you said, took out battery and replaced it and still could not get the bios. This is so frustrating. I know my battery was going because my time was always wrong, maybe if I buy a new battery, will that make it work, could a dead battery cause all that? thanks

[This message has been edited by itchy (edited 01-25-2001).]

[mjc]

Losing time and then eventually not being able to boot are pretty good signs of a dead battery. After you replace the battery make sure you reset the defaults and set the disk parameters to auto or whatever your BIOS uses to automatically detect the drives.

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mjc

[Randy_tx]

Correct on the battery being dead (losing time and all); however, you should have been able to get into Cmos after pulling battery (dead or alive)...If you cant even get into cmos then you didnt wait long enough to clear the password out in all likelyhood. If you still cant get into cmos (hitting del key at startup) after waiting 15 min or so with battery out...then you have other MB probs.

[bassvax]

To add on here...if leaving the battery out still does not accomplish a CMOS reset there should be jumpers on the mobo for 'Clear CMOS'. You may have to consult your mobo manual to locate them. Pete's site has good references for identifying your mobo http://www.geocities.com/paleopete/
Let us know if you get anywhere with the prob http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/smile.gif

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Jerry

[HeKmeH]

Cmos can be reset either by removing the battery for a while and reinserting it or by finding the bios jumper(if available) like the guys said, after that make sure u set in the hard disk parameters,(use auto detection, more practical).
If u r unable to reset ur bios(which shouldn't be happening if u're doing it the right way) try to look for some password cracking codes, they work on old bioses. try AWARD and AWARD_SW as pass if u have an award bios.
By the way if ur bios is password protected, i don't really think ur battery was dead, cause if it was the password would have been reset/disabled too. I would recommand u leave the WAIT... msg and do sthg else, i think after some time it'll give u another error msg with the real problem.

[itchy]

Thank you all for your help. My computer is up and running but since I'm not an expert I did have to take it to a repair guy since I could not get into bios after removing and putting in a new battery. He apparently did what you said about finding the bios jumper. The only problem now is that the light on my floppy is always on, now what? Also, is there a way to get rid of that first window that pops up when I boot up asking me for a password, I don't have a password and that is not the same problem I was having before where it asked me for a password. This is after it goes through the first few screens of booting up where my name will appear as the user. Thanks

[Paleo Pete]

The floppy drive LED staying on means the ribbon cable is backward, since the computer shop apparently was tinkering with the motherboard, I would say it's probably that end, check it first. The ribbon cable has a colored stripe on one side, it should correspond to the #1 pin on the motherboard, and usually go on the same side as the power cable on the drive. Check it, and be sure it's set up that way. The motherboard is usually marked with either a numeral 1 or a small triangle pointing to the #1 pin.

Don't know about the password problem, if the computer shop charged you for all this they took your money and didn't fix the problem. I would not be a happy camper...If the floppy LED didn't stay on all the time before thy worked on it, they also created another problem. I would be even more unhappy...

It might take some digging, but if you can find out your BIOS manufacturer they usually have a default password that should work to get into BIOS and change it. If it's a windows password, boot into DOS and delete the PWL file, that should get rid of it. The command would be del_*.pwl using a space in place of the underscore ( _ ) used here. I think it's located in the windows directory, but not positive. Then just click OK if the windows password box pops up again, that should finish it off entirely and the box should not come back.

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Note: Please post your questions on the forums, not in my email.

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[mjc]

If it is the Windows logon pasword you are talking about then just clicking ok without entering one is supposed to disable it. Also which version of Windows are you running?

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mjc

[itchy]

I have Windows 98 and either clicking okay or cancel doesn't matter, it still comes back.

[Txsicon]

on the windows password thing, I ran into this once before. If i remember right, it's because you have more than one profile or user setup. this makes sense because the repair shop most likely did not setup a user and just past though that screen, then when you got it back, you used your user name. if you follow this instructions in the earler posting and deleted the password list and all other users then the user/password screen will stop coming up. if there is only one user on the machine with no password assighed the user/password screen does not come up.