HP Pavilion 6830 won't boot up after BIOS screen.
I'm working on a HP Pavilion 6830 desktop for someone else. 700 Mhz Celeron, 64 MB RAM (it'll get more IF it works), Windows XP Home, etc. The BIOS knows what CPU and how much memory it has in it.
When I got it, all it would do when you turn it on is say something like "invalid system disk, insert disk to continue". Well, inserting my Knoppix 3.6 bootable CD and an XP Home boot disk didn't work.
Since nothing would work on it, I used another computer I have laying around to load XP Home onto the HP's 20 GB hard drive. I ran my old computer off that hard drive, and it worked fine.
So now I reconnect the hard drive to the rest of the 6830. I made sure all the cables were properly installed.
Now it'll get the BIOS screen, but then it goes to a black screen with a blinking cursor. And nothing else. Ever.
Tried booting it off the XP Home CD. Tried booting it off the Knoppix 3.6 CD. Tried booting it with another known good 3 GB hard drive I keep around for testing. Tried testing the CMOS battery (3.0 volts), and then replacing it with a new one after waiting 20 minutes for the CMOS to clear out, since I couldn't see the CMOS clearing jumper (it's TIGHT inside a 6830 case!) if it even has one. Tried going into the BIOS a few times, and setting the boot order to (1) CD-ROM & (2) hard drive. Tried using the BIOS default settings.
Nothing, this thing wants to be a little bitch or something. All I can get out of it is the BIOS startup screen, and then a black screen with a blinking cursor.
Now, it's not the end of the world if it doesn't get fixed, but I'm getting paid for this and I can't charge as much $$$ for a FUBARed computer.
So, anyone got any ideas? I think this computer is permanently f"(ked up.
When I got it, all it would do when you turn it on is say something like "invalid system disk, insert disk to continue". Well, inserting my Knoppix 3.6 bootable CD and an XP Home boot disk didn't work.
Since nothing would work on it, I used another computer I have laying around to load XP Home onto the HP's 20 GB hard drive. I ran my old computer off that hard drive, and it worked fine.
So now I reconnect the hard drive to the rest of the 6830. I made sure all the cables were properly installed.
Now it'll get the BIOS screen, but then it goes to a black screen with a blinking cursor. And nothing else. Ever.
Tried booting it off the XP Home CD. Tried booting it off the Knoppix 3.6 CD. Tried booting it with another known good 3 GB hard drive I keep around for testing. Tried testing the CMOS battery (3.0 volts), and then replacing it with a new one after waiting 20 minutes for the CMOS to clear out, since I couldn't see the CMOS clearing jumper (it's TIGHT inside a 6830 case!) if it even has one. Tried going into the BIOS a few times, and setting the boot order to (1) CD-ROM & (2) hard drive. Tried using the BIOS default settings.
Nothing, this thing wants to be a little bitch or something. All I can get out of it is the BIOS startup screen, and then a black screen with a blinking cursor.
Now, it's not the end of the world if it doesn't get fixed, but I'm getting paid for this and I can't charge as much $$$ for a FUBARed computer.
So, anyone got any ideas? I think this computer is permanently f"(ked up.
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Comments
If it's the first case, see if you can get hold of a DOS boot disk, point it to the HD, then run Setup from there. If you've done the installation you will need to boot from the XP Home CD and try a Repair Install.
Have you checked the boot order in the BIOS? Have you tried a different cdrom drive?