Major PC Crash SORTED

Page may contain affiliate links. Please see terms for details.
OP
OP
Scoosh

Scoosh

Velocouchiste
Moderator
Location
Edinburgh
Is it a PS2 or a USB keyboard that you have plugged in.
If the bios is slightly knacked/old, then it my not be reading a USB keyboard and you'll need to plug a PS2 keyboard in to get into the BIOS.
Once you do get into the BIOS :angry:, you can check if all your drives are being seen and reset the boot order.

Luck ........... :biggrin:
It's an older PS2 - the ones with the lilac cable connector. It wouldn't accept the USB one, which is wireless.
 
You won't get into the bios.
It's corrupt.
What you're seeing is a basic bootstrap that kicks in and allows you to recover with a floppy disk loaded with
suitable flash programming software and a bios image to program in.
Mind you i've found one where the checksum error is random and seems to be related to hardware problems.
You could try turning the system on and leaving it for say half an hour then switching off and on just to see
if it's psu warmup problems.
As it's less than a year old your best bet is taking it back to the vendor.
Assuming you have unplugged all the drives and pci cards and tried removing the ram sticks one at a time then
i'd say it's either the psu (whatever your multi meter says) or the motherboard.
 
OP
OP
Scoosh

Scoosh

Velocouchiste
Moderator
Location
Edinburgh
Called the DinoPC helpdesk yesterday and very friendly/helpful they were too :becool: .....

... but unfortunately, their only suggestions were to :

1 - try F12 to get into BIOS

2 - remove the USB connections from the front (as this was where the 'problem' may have started)

Neither of these has helped


3 - return PC to them and they will reload the OS (but probably at the cost of all the data on the hard disc, of course :sad:)


If I were to go down option 3 route, can I remove the hard disc and insert a different one, thereby keeping my data ? If so, any suggestions what to get ? I don't suppose it needs to be very big, as I have used about 5% of the 500GB I currently have, in 8 months.


Help is very gratefully received :hugs:
 
If I were to go down option 3 route, can I remove the hard disc and insert a different one, thereby keeping my data ? If so, any suggestions what to get ? I don't suppose it needs to be very big, as I have used about 5% of the 500GB I currently have, in 8 months.


Help is very gratefully received :hugs:

So it was F12 to access the bios after all that...but it didn't work anyway.

I would ask them about providing a different hard disk. I am fairly sure that won't be a problem if you maintain that there are certain private documents that you can't risk, or somesuch.

Best to talk to them first though, at least to let them know - just providing a different drive with the returned system may have them assuming that it was the cause of the problem and therefore not worth them investigating further.
 

swee'pea99

Squire
Don't know if it'll help, but I just found this on another board...

Had the same problem after attempting a bios update on a customers' Gigabyte GA-7VA rev.1 using the @BIOS windows utility from the manufacturer.

When the PC was rebooted I recieved "BIOS ROM Checksum error
Detecting Floppy drive A media
INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER"

Tried several attempts with the DOS boot floppy and the manufacturer flash utility...no go.

Only thing that finally worked was a "open source" utility called "UniFlash" available here:
http://www.uniflash.org/
I setup the autoexec.bat file to run as is described in the download and it worked like a charm. READ the enclosed text files before attempting...As it says, "This is not for the fainted hearted..."

After reading several posts on this and other forums, and how fatal this error can be in many cases, I can't express enough how this utility saved my sanity...what an incredible relief it was.



Hope this helps.
 
OP
OP
Scoosh

Scoosh

Velocouchiste
Moderator
Location
Edinburgh
So it was F12 to access the bios after all that...but it didn't work anyway.

I would ask them about providing a different hard disk. I am fairly sure that won't be a problem if you maintain that there are certain private documents that you can't risk, or somesuch.

Best to talk to them first though, at least to let them know - just providing a different drive with the returned system may have them assuming that it was the cause of the problem and therefore not worth them investigating further.
Not neccessarily - what the guy actually said was "Oh, it's a Foxconn motherboard - we don't use them now and I haven't dealt with one for so long, I can't remember what key it should be. Try F12 - it might help" ! ;)

So things have moved on in 8 months .... :biggrin:.


Reading something on their webpage, would it be a good idea to get another hard drive fitted anyway, to divide up the system and data ? What size would I need to get for Win 7 Home Premium ? Will I be able to remove the Win 7 on the present drive once it is loaded on the new drive ?
 
OP
OP
Scoosh

Scoosh

Velocouchiste
Moderator
Location
Edinburgh
http://www.uniflash.org/[/url]
I setup the autoexec.bat file to run as is described in the download and it worked like a charm. READ the enclosed text files before attempting...As it says, "This is not for the fainted hearted..."

After reading several posts on this and other forums, and how fatal this error can be in many cases, I can't express enough how this utility saved my sanity...what an incredible relief it was.[/i]


Hope this helps.
[goes to make STRO-O-NG coffee before reading]

Thanks, SP - I'll [gulp] have a look at that .......:wacko:

Faint hearted ? Me ? No chance ! :becool:



Just dead scared :eek: :rolleyes:
 
OP
OP
Scoosh

Scoosh

Velocouchiste
Moderator
Location
Edinburgh
[quote name='swee'pea99' timestamp='1282311721' post='1369546']
Look on the bright side - nothing you do is likely to make it any worse! :whistle:
[/quote]
:blink: :blink:

The difficulty I see with flashing my BIOS [!!!] is that all the examples are done using a working machine. It is a method of upgrading the BIOS, not fixing it when it is bust/not accessible.


I leaning towards being better returning it to the folks at Dino and getting them to sort it out so, if there are any parts to be replaced, they'll do it under warranty.

Me, chicken ? ......




Oh YES ! :shy:
 
OP
OP
Scoosh

Scoosh

Velocouchiste
Moderator
Location
Edinburgh
Taking strong coffee in one hand, my courage in t'other, I thought "Right, let's Flash my BIOS !" :blush:

Followed the vid clip to the letter, downloaded the updated BIOS, downloaded Alcohol120%, selected Image Burning Wizard ..... then ......


... why is it that the files you are told to insert and burn are the wrong type ??? :angry: What type are image burning files ??? Why can the guy in the vid do it and I can't :angry: ???????? Why are his files the right type and mine aren't ????? :angry:





Now, where is the original box the 'puter came in ?


[heads for attic]


:sad: :sad: :headshake: :headshake:


:cry: :cry: :cry:

[sounds of breaking ... well .............. anything :ohmy:]
 

swee'pea99

Squire
That'll learn yer. Didn't yer mum tell yer to never talk to strange men on the internet? 




Sorry it all went pear-shaped. 




Incidentally, this has some stuff on image-burning files. Might be helpful...?
 
OP
OP
Scoosh

Scoosh

Velocouchiste
Moderator
Location
Edinburgh
AAaaaaargh !!!

I have little/no idea of what I have done - I thought I was disconnecting the USB connection but it turned out to be the wee power connectors for the LEDs on the front and for the - I don't know - something else.

I checked and pulled out the USB thing.


I decided, after the attempt to flash my BIOS, that I would put things back together, contact Dino and send it back.

I reconnected the power things - and got them the wrong way round, so no red LED, no restart button.

Connected the right way; re-connected the USB cable.

Switched on to check lights ..... and ............ and




..... the d**n thing booted up, went to the Motherboard screen, I (very carefully) reset the date/time and it is now Restoring itself :huh: !

:wacko: :wacko: or what ???


I'll post back from my own PC when it is OK again :hyper:.



Not that I am counting chooks yet ....... :rolleyes:



Absurd question [which will maybe get me in BIG trouble :whistle:]

Computers or Ladies - which is easier to understand ??
 

rh100

Well-Known Member
Discs :rolleyes:.

Yes, I have a couple of them. Not a Restore but I do have a Foxconn (for the motherboard) and a Win 7 - but I suspect that the Foxconn is just the manual on cd. I've got the manual too ;). Would there be anything I could usefully extract from there ? (other then it saying "Press [DEL] to enter Setup, [Esc] to boot menu")

Not surprisingly, I would prefer not to lose all my files :blush:


If the screen says press DEL then it's not f12 as your tech support says. But it seems you are in now.

When it shows BIOS checksum problems, it usually just means it's forgot all its settings and it needs you to go into bios, save and come out again. A common symptom of a flat battery and to be expected if you were trying to clear the cmos anyway. Usually it will default to having a floppy drive and the floppy being the first boot device, it will also reset the clock amongst other system settings. So if your pc has no floppy drive then it needs disabling and the boot sequence needs to be changed back to the hard disk.

If having problems getting into the bios, first thing to check is the keyboard itself, does the num lock or caps lock come on when pressed?

All this should be irrelevant now if you are getting it to boot up, but you still have the initial problem to deal with, a fault after a usb stick is used is bad news - a scan in safe mode would be best.
 
Not when it says bios rom checksum error it doesn't. That is usually cmos checksum error. But in this case it looks like
it was a false report caused by a front panel fault as a cmos checksum shouldn't stop access to the bios setup whereas a
scrambled bios would. Too many threads with folks confusing the two.
Plus the correction seems to involve disconnecting the power switch at the front and those have been known
to get jammed on sometimes.
Anyway if you don't currently backup your data to an external drive start now.
Oh and download something like easeus todo and use it to image your drive to dvds in case of having to do a restore
of the entire system at a later date
 
Top Bottom