9/15/14 9:12 PM

Ok, my PC is not booting. I have it on verbose mode during the boot process. It shows what machine and bio I have, then pauses, and go back to trying to boot... round and round in circles. Doesn't even get the DOS prompt. This is a stage I've never seen in past troubles of the many PC I owned.

I don't hear the HD spinning. But hear the CD-ROM, which is set as next to boot from. So I'm suspecting in could be HD issue?

I would like to somehow boot it up to at least command level so I can verify if the HD is dead or just currupted. But I don't have any boot disc/CD/stick handy. What's the easiest way to get something of a basic OS downloaded to say, a memory stick so I can boot it up? I do have access to another PC to do that bit.

All the files on the HD is backed up so no biggie if it's dead. But if it's just corrupted, then I can probably fix it easily.

9/15/14 11:37 PM

Check the cables. Sounds like the drive is not getting power.

9/16/14 5:22 AM

...it's more likely to be a memory issue than the hard drive. Typically with the latter, it fails to boot and just stops. Pull the memory and re-seat it, then try booting again. If it has more than one memory module, try them each separately. It could also be CPU related, but that's pretty unlikely.

If that doesn't work, it may be the hard drive. Checking the cables as Eric suggested would be the next step.

If you happen to have a spare hard drive - even from another computer - you can plug it in and see if it tries to boot from it. You'll likely have driver conflicts, but you'll at least have pinpointed the problem.

9/16/14 6:46 AM

suggest booting a linux live-cd, pick your flavour, just to see if the machine will boot at all and if you can spin-up/access your boot HD.

from there you can run diagnostics on your HD and even repair/rebuild the boot sector if needed.

9/16/14 8:20 AM

Following Walter's advice, the first thing I would determine if if the hard drive is the issue. To do so, try booting to a usb flash drive or cd rom with your choice of operating system software such as such some flavor of Linux.
Before you boot up you can change the pecking order in which to boot from in the BIOS settings. You should push the Hard drive option down the list.

9/16/14 10:26 AM

Are you getting an unusual audio sequence of beeps when you attempt to boot? Time was you could get a clue as to what was wrong based on a boot up audio code.

9/16/14 11:16 AM

I am with the boot sector opinion being ruled out

Last edited by Sparky on 9/16/14 1:23 PM; edited 1 time in total

9/16/14 11:21 AM

Thanks Walter and JS.

I do have a Linux flash drive, but it's in my apt in the city. Won't get to it till next week.

In the mean time, I tried popping an old Window CD (it's been a while since computers come with OS on a CD). But unfortunately, it's complaining about no driver for the CD-ROM. My brain is a bit frayed. How do you boot from CD if you don't have the driver loaded first?

9/16/14 1:24 PM

If you are near a Microsoft store, they'll diagnose your problem for free.
http://content.microsoftstore.com/answerdesk

9/16/14 1:59 PM

itll boot up right quick w/ all the drivers you'll need.