wont boot

[stan31]

greetings.first time here.gomputer is intel pent 4 1.70 gh 228 ram 40 gh hd.
kids were playing a game unsupervised and now i cant boot it gets me to phoenix p4ma-mnb.b11forp4ma mnbmain processor intel celeron1.7ghmemory testing 229376k decting ide drives.there it stops. cont alt del and it boots right back .pressing delete to enter setup does nothing. thanks for your help
regards stan in florida

[tuffun]

If the comp is not fully detecting the HD - it maybe a loose wire in the case or it maybe a virus.

At ends it could be a bad HD, even if it's worked well in the past.

If you know how to do it -- hit del - enter setup - and goto the section where the HD is detected in BIOS. if it's detected there it's prob not a hardware issue, but a software 1 --

if all else fails and yer comp runs XP -- u can go into setup (with del)
change the 1st boot to CDROM and pop in yer XP disk -- have the comp boot straight from the disk and run the repair program included.

hope this helps

[stan31]

thanks for prompt reply.i was going in to bios but before i did i decided to check connections.i did and i dont know which one it was but i have it working now.thanks again.stan in florida

[HayZee518]

When you start the machine press DEL to get you to the BIOS screen. Check boot sequence. Most units are C:, CDROM and A:
Newer machines are CDROM, C: (no "A" drive)
Some machine require pressing F12 to get you to the CMOS or BIOS.

[tuffun]

Glad to hear ya got it workin -- now someone go look at my plumbing post...
LOL

[skeezix]

Hmm... It initially sounds like a hardware problem. If it were a software problem you would most likely get some sort of screen from Microsoft or Windows before it locked up. You might try booting off of a floppy disk and see if it gets further. If not, it is most likely a motherboard or hard drive problem. Do you get any beep codes? Short, long, how many?

Are your kids pretty good about powering down and powering up the computer? If they shut down the computer and immediately turn it back on without giving the computer 5-10 seconds to spin down it can cause hardware problems.

[skeezix]

Sorry... my cache server hadn't refreshed the post until after I replied. I just saw that you got up an running. Good deal. Cheers.