Question

Two perfectly good PC's now won't boot

Asked by: williampeck

I recently moved two perfectly good PC's in a corporate environment. PC-1 went to a conference floor for a demo, PC-2 I justed moved from one cubicle to another. Both are IBM NetVista's.

Now both won't boot up. Neither was mishandled, just placed gently on the floor (that has a carpet on it, just your basic office carpet). Could that have zapped them? I hope not, since I'm a consultant here :-(

For PC-1, when I moved it to the conference room, at first it didn't boot. 2nd time though it  booted ok. When I took it back and put the machine on the desktop, now it won't boot.

For PC-2, the office moving company moved my PC overnight, set it up on the desktop and it booted up ok. Then I moved it to the floor to save space - and 5 minutes after it had worked, now it won't boot. PC-2 lays flat on the desk and I'm in no position to crack the case, mainly because everyone's watching (my cube wall is three feet high :-(

For PC-2, now it says "No operating system found". PC-1 doesn't say that but it never makes it to the boot sequence, it just loops.

I had the same thing at home, to fix it I just opened the case (IBM NetVista) and made sure everything was tight, and that fixed that.  So I opened one of the cases here, pushed on the cables / hard drive to make sure it was tight, now nothing.

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Asked On
2007-08-02 at 10:12:49ID22738098
Tags

netvista

,

boot

,

good

,

now

,

pc

Topics

Personal Computers

,

Firefox Web Browser

,

Windows XP Operating System

Participating Experts
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Comments
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Answers

 

by: cipher007Posted on 2007-08-02 at 10:27:11ID: 19618983

Do you get any BIOS beeps.. If so what are the beeps.

I remember having this kind of a problem once before.
Strangely it was resolved when I reinserted the processor.

If removing and reinserting all the cards and cables doesn't do the job, then you might as well remove and reinsert the processor. This could be risky, though.

 

by: MshinePosted on 2007-08-02 at 10:41:11ID: 19619128

Putting these things down on the carpet would not have ZAPPED these. The cases
are grounded, so unless you opened the case rubbed your feet on the carpet and
stuck your hand inside to touch something, I would rule this out.

If these got zapped, it would be more like from NOT plugging them into a surge supressor
power strip, but even that is highly unlikely. (not impossible, but unlikely)

Just did a little reading about these PC's. Some of them have an interesting feature:

"Increased uptime and productivity
Do you want to increase your productivity, easily recover information and reduce IT costs?
IBM Rapid Restore PC, a ThinkVantage" technology, offers a hassle-free one-button (F11 key)
recovery solution that lets you restore your previously saved data, applications and operating
system with just the touch of a button. This unique recovery system is now pre-installed on your
hard disk drive."

Is this an option, or when you say "I am a consultant" do you mean you were borrowing
another companies PC and busted them??


 

by: MshinePosted on 2007-08-02 at 10:44:13ID: 19619155

There is also this, the next paragraph down:
______________________________________________________________
IBM offers the most secure industry-standard PC
IBM provides a heightened level of PC security with its unique TCPA-compliant
security solution. The Embedded Security Subsystem 2.0 (select models), a
ThinkVantage technology, fulfills security standards recognized by 180 companies
and includes IBM Client Security Software (via download). This software helps
provide user authentication, data protection and more secure communications
when used in conjunction with a third-party digital certificate (not included).
This hardware/software security mechanism is not offered as a standard feature
on a PC by any other manufacturer.
____________________________________________________________
The last sentence has me wondering if you did not trigger some sort of Anti Theft
mechanism?? Maybe you were supposed to do something before removing and
moving these PC from the network??

 

by: williampeckPosted on 2007-08-02 at 11:32:54ID: 19619598

Success !

As I watched the error messages come up on PC-2, I noticed one said "pointing device error" - Hmm, I said, let me put in the mouse - and it booted !

And for PC-1, when I had returned it from the conference room, someone had already swiped the mouse, so most likely when the mouse comes back, it will boot too !

Sorry about that ! I thought a PC would boot without a mouse, so I didn't even think about that.

cipher007 - thanks, it's a bit out of my league on re-inserting the processor, but good to know.

MShine - thanks, I figured the carpet didn't zap it, but it was the only common denominator I could think of.  Also, thanks for the research, always good to get tips. >> I am a consultant >> I use PC's at the client site so I was not feeling too good that I may have crashed 2 computers !

Ok, I'm good-to-go.

 

by: achcheePosted on 2007-08-02 at 11:37:44ID: 19619644

No operating system found usually points to a bad hard drive, or could be as simple as a floppy being inserted at the time of boot.  Try booting with a xp disk and running chkdsk /r.

 

by: williampeckPosted on 2007-08-02 at 17:13:59ID: 19621853

Lee, thanks for the info.

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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