Blue Screen of Death - help!

by **7 Wishes** » Wed Mar 18, 2009 4:10 am

Well, the program loaded, but it didn't recognize the E Drive.

So, I turned off the program and removed the (old) hard drive.

I went to turn on the working CPU later that morning, and the yellow indicator light on the front of the Dell flashed on and off. Now, the healthy computer won't even power up. That indicator light is connected to the mother board...nothing downloaded from the virus drive, so what could have happened? I've tried resetting everything, but now the good Dell won't even power up.

AAAARGH!

by **Shadowsong** » Wed Mar 18, 2009 4:34 am

Ouch feel your pain...hope someone can get you out of that mess/

by **Voyager** » Wed Mar 18, 2009 5:02 am

7 Wishes wrote:Well, the program loaded, but it didn't recognize the E Drive.

So, I turned off the program and removed the (old) hard drive.

I went to turn on the working CPU later that morning, and the yellow indicator light on the front of the Dell flashed on and off. Now, the healthy computer won't even power up. That indicator light is connected to the mother board...nothing downloaded from the virus drive, so what could have happened? I've tried resetting everything, but now the good Dell won't even power up.

AAAARGH!

Nothing could have transfered from the bad drive if your other computer wouldn't recognize that it had anything on it.

You may need to go into your bios and remove the additional hard drive. Press F2 when it boots up and go into the hard drive section and change any drives displayed to AUTO, then hit ESC and save it. Hopefully it will boot up after that.

by **7 Wishes** » Wed Mar 18, 2009 5:15 am

The problem is, I cannot even get it to boot up at all. Nothing. Just the flashing yellow light that's connected to the mother board.

by **Shadowsong** » Wed Mar 18, 2009 5:38 am

R you saying the monitor is dead?
check the connections/ power?

Once my monitor died
thought it was computer but it was booting just was not able to see it.

This is where I can see the use of 2 hard drives in one puter so as to use only one for sensitive & important info & use the other for the internet.
Still what many are saying is that viruses rarely affect the hardrive?

Guess I'm ioverdue for a backup

Good Luck

Last time I had a problem was July 4th
always have problems in July
i have learned to fear it
its a curse...

:shock:

by **brywool** » Wed Mar 18, 2009 5:42 am

Re: AntiVirus-
I would tell anyone that if you have Mcaffee or Norton, GET RID OF IT. It's utter crap. It completely hogs your resources and is just Lame with a capital L. Get AVG by Grisoft. It's free for home use and has ALWAYS worked for me.

by **Voyager** » Wed Mar 18, 2009 5:59 am

7 Wishes wrote:The problem is, I cannot even get it to boot up at all. Nothing. Just the flashing yellow light that's connected to the mother board.

Go back and check all the hard drive cables. You may have yanked one of the AC or ribbon cables loose from one of the drives or your motherboard when installing the other drive, which would cause this.

by **Rick** » Wed Mar 18, 2009 6:29 am

7 Wishes wrote:Well, the program loaded, but it didn't recognize the E Drive.

So, I turned off the program and removed the (old) hard drive.

I went to turn on the working CPU later that morning, and the yellow indicator light on the front of the Dell flashed on and off. Now, the healthy computer won't even power up. That indicator light is connected to the mother board...nothing downloaded from the virus drive, so what could have happened? I've tried resetting everything, but now the good Dell won't even power up.

AAAARGH!

If the hard drive in the healthy computer is a Western Digital, it requires that you remove all jumpers if it is a single drive. It only requires jumpers if it has a slave attached. That could be preventing it from booting.

by **7 Wishes** » Wed Mar 18, 2009 7:11 am

Everything is back exactly the way it was before I (briefly) installed the virus drive. Everything is connected and secure - it really appears to be a motherboard issue...why, I have no idea. I know there is power going to the unit because the indicator lights are all on.

by **Rick** » Wed Mar 18, 2009 7:19 am

7 Wishes wrote:Everything is back exactly the way it was before I (briefly) installed the virus drive. Everything is connected and secure - it really appears to be a motherboard issue...why, I have no idea. I know there is power going to the unit because the indicator lights are all on.

One question. Did you unplug the pc before trying any of this? That's a must.

by **7 Wishes** » Wed Mar 18, 2009 8:19 am

Oh yeah. I don't need to add electrocution to my list of malaises.

by **7 Wishes** » Wed Mar 18, 2009 11:56 am

When I get home tonight, I'm taking both of these pieces of shit out behind the barn to end their respective suffering. Whether or not I can eventually retrieve my music files, or even get them working again, I'm going with Macs from now on. Enough.

by **Gideon** » Wed Mar 18, 2009 11:56 am

Holy Christ, 7 Wishes, is that you in your avatar?

Edit: Lmao at holy "Chris."

by **Rhiannon** » Wed Mar 18, 2009 12:12 pm

7 Wishes wrote:I'm going with Macs from now on.

And another one converts.

by **StoneCold** » Wed Mar 18, 2009 12:12 pm

Did you try Sarah's suggestion of getting a Linux boot cd?

I've used bootable "Ubuntu" cds and was able to access drives that the pc couldn't see anymore.

by **7 Wishes** » Wed Mar 18, 2009 12:24 pm

I shall have to try that when I get home tonight - anything is worth a shot at this point! I'm heading over to that site right now.

Gunbot, the big-schozzed dufus in the avatar is me, demonstrating some stupid exercise to some clients on our biannual "train the trainer day" at the studio.

by **T-Bone** » Wed Mar 18, 2009 2:34 pm

A flashing yellow light on a Dell power button usually indicates a motherboard or power supply issue. Unplug the power and then pul and replug ALL cables

by **Playitloudforme** » Wed Mar 18, 2009 2:36 pm

7 Wishes wrote:When I get home tonight, I'm taking both of these pieces of shit out behind the barn to end their respective suffering. Whether or not I can eventually retrieve my music files, or even get them working again, I'm going with Macs from now on. Enough.

tis the only way to go. Zero issues with my now 4 yr old laptop. Zero.

by **LaDoDa** » Wed Mar 18, 2009 3:12 pm

7 Wishes wrote:I shall have to try that when I get home tonight - anything is worth a shot at this point! I'm heading over to that site right now.

Gunbot, the big-schozzed dufus in the avatar is me, demonstrating some stupid exercise to some clients on our biannual "train the trainer day" at the studio.

Hey man,

I really feel your pain. I'm a software engineer for a very large three-letter company... (rhymes with "eye bee em")... and I promise you that Macs are superior in every way, shape and form. I work in a group of high-end developers and we all have Macs at home (and some, like me, have Macs as our work machines as well).

Some like to claim that Macs cost more (they do), but the quality of the componentry, amazing set of features, quality of the bundled software, and list of wonderful software that comes free with them more than makes up for any price difference.

Do not listen to those Mac detractors who would tell you Macs aren't "compatible" or have stories of crashing or other problems. Macs are intel based now, and can run Windows better than most PCs. Mac OS X, the operating system, is UNIX based and offers you unbelievable power and security.

I know this doesn't help you recover your data, but I just wanted to let you know your thought of buying a Mac is the right way to go... I deal with every operating system under the sun.

GOOD LUCK!!!!

by **Voyager** » Wed Mar 18, 2009 3:23 pm

The guy needs help on repairing his Ford minivan, not a sermon on why he should have purchased a Cadillac instead.

I've got 22 non-Mac Dell servers running Windows Server, and they have been running flawlessly for four years now.

People can messup a Mac just as easy as a PC... but the fact is that 95% of computer users don't use Macs... so no wonder the complaints are less.

:roll:

by **LaDoDa** » Wed Mar 18, 2009 3:40 pm

Voyager wrote:The guy needs help on repairing his Ford minivan, not a sermon on why he should have purchased a Cadillac instead.

I've got 22 non-Mac Dell servers running Windows Server, and they have been running flawlessly for four years now.

People can messup a Mac just as easy as a PC... but the fact is that 95% of computer users don't use Macs... so no wonder the complaints are less.

Like I said, i was merely supporting his decision to move to a Mac. The simple fact is that if you are defending a PC for any reason other than price, it is no different than defending a Chevy Cobalt over a BMW 3-Series. Macs are superior. Macs are very superior. Trust me. I know.

I deal with every operating system under the sun (typing this email on SuSE 11, an OS that hasn't even been released yet).

I'll help him in any way I can. This wasn't a sermon. It was simply affirmation of HIS idea of moving to the Mac platform.

RE-LAX

by **Shadowsong** » Wed Mar 18, 2009 3:45 pm

LaDoDa wrote:
Voyager wrote:The guy needs help on repairing his Ford minivan, not a sermon on why he should have purchased a Cadillac instead.

I've got 22 non-Mac Dell servers running Windows Server, and they have been running flawlessly for four years now.

People can messup a Mac just as easy as a PC... but the fact is that 95% of computer users don't use Macs... so no wonder the complaints are less.

RE-LAX

Yeah, what he said
Ex Lax\

:lol:

by **Voyager** » Wed Mar 18, 2009 4:03 pm

by **Sarah** » Wed Mar 18, 2009 6:08 pm

I worked at UCLA's largest computer lab for a few years, and we have Mac desktops and dual-booting Macbooks that get rented by dozens of students a day and... they all have a million problems all the time. Before we had Macbooks, we had Dell Latitudes, which of course had issues too. Not saying I'm an expert but just that we had high traffic and frequent computer problems.

There's no real "safe" computer/OS imo. I think its reliability/lifespan really depends on what you're doing with it. It's easy to avoid viruses on Windows, and if you can't seem to avoid them, install Linux.

by **T-Bone** » Thu Mar 19, 2009 12:35 am

Listen Up... He wants help with his current problem. All you fanboys of OTHER brands can just keep to yourself if you don't have a solution dealing with the problem.

Simple MATH tells me that PC's seem to have more problems because 90% of computer users use them. Break that down with ratios and common denominators and I'm sure they're EQUAL in problems to a PC. Now get off your soapboxes and quit trying to justify something that's not there.

7 Wishes... Try the unplug/replug theory. I work on Dell's quite a bit. A 4700 uses SATA connection for the hard drives, but still used the E-IDE connection for the ROM drives. The 2400 uses E-IDE for ALL the drives. I'm assuming you tried the E-IDE cable if you took the hard drive out of the 2400 and tried it in the 4700. The weird thing about Dells is that they will look for exactly what BIO's tells them is there. If you have 2 hard drives enabled in Bio's, but only 1 installed, it has a fit and will constantly ask you to check settings. Same for the Floppy Drive. Factory default I THINK is set to USB. In bios, turn it to INTERNAL if you have one, and OFF if you don't. My 5100, 5150, E510's piss me off all the time with that.

Once you check all the plugs, make sure the Bios is set up correctly. Returning to the Factory Default Bios setting may not help you, especially if you have more than 1 CD Rom. You'll have to make sure both are enabled in Bios.

Check the connectors and get back to me

MR

Blue Screen of Death - help!

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