Win 7 won't start

[paulcrill]

Hi all. I have a mate who has moved to a little island south of Oz. His computer arrived but for some reason won't boot up. As he says: My computer is refusing to switch on as far as Windows, it asks as always for an F1 prompt, says 'no signal detected' and then reboots.

Does anyone have any ideas? He's a writer and really needs his comp to catch up on deadlines. They thought it might be a heat issue at first, but I think they ruled that out. I've posted the exact sequence below.

When the machine starts up it goes to a screen which starts with 'Phoenix - AwardBIOS v6,An Energy Star Ally copyright etc.
P4M890-m7 TE
It then describes main processor, memmory testing
cpu brand etc then
IDE channels

It then says 'floppy disk(s) fail (40)'

Press F8 to enable system configuration
Press F9 to select booting device after POST
Press F1 to continue, Del to enter SETUP'

F8 and F9 have no response. F1 takes you to a 'we apologise for the inconvenience windows did not start up normally. A recent hardware or software change might have caused this.'

it then offers you choices of safe mode, safe mode with networking, safe mode with command prompt, last known good configuration, or start windows normally

Start windows normally takes you to no signal detected and then loops you back
last known good configuration loops you back
Safemode loops you back without no signal detected
None of above cause any beeps
I have taken out the graphics card and tried it with the onboard graphics card. Same result.
I have tested the hard-drive in the case we have for reading it out of the machine - I can look at files on it. All the fans are turning, and CPU temp is around 41.

 

[Drake2007]

First off, Press Del and stop that annoying floppy disk error by disabling that.
While you're in the BIOS, check the boot order is DVD then HD, you can then try reboot the PC with Windows 7 Disk inserted and do a repair/reinstall.

 

[Viva]

I would open the computer and check that everything was connected fine. Maybe one of the DIMMs got loose, or maybe the graphics card or some other part. This once happened to one of my DIMMs. After that, I would try a windows repair.

 

[wHiTe*LiGhTnInG]

Bumping around all that way, could also have damaged data on the drive. But yeah things could have come lose in side too.

 

[|tera|]

Hi all. I have a mate who has moved to a little island south of Oz. His computer arrived but for some reason won't boot up. As he says: My computer is refusing to switch on as far as Windows, it asks as always for an F1 prompt, says 'no signal detected' and then reboots.

Does anyone have any ideas? He's a writer and really needs his comp to catch up on deadlines. They thought it might be a heat issue at first, but I think they ruled that out. I've posted the exact sequence below.

When the machine starts up it goes to a screen which starts with 'Phoenix - AwardBIOS v6,An Energy Star Ally copyright etc.
P4M890-m7 TE
It then describes main processor, memmory testing
cpu brand etc then
IDE channels

It then says 'floppy disk(s) fail (40)'

Press F8 to enable system configuration
Press F9 to select booting device after POST
Press F1 to continue, Del to enter SETUP'

F8 and F9 have no response. F1 takes you to a 'we apologise for the inconvenience windows did not start up normally. A recent hardware or software change might have caused this.'

it then offers you choices of safe mode, safe mode with networking, safe mode with command prompt, last known good configuration, or start windows normally

Start windows normally takes you to no signal detected and then loops you back
last known good configuration loops you back
Safemode loops you back without no signal detected
None of above cause any beeps
I have taken out the graphics card and tried it with the onboard graphics card. Same result.
I have tested the hard-drive in the case we have for reading it out of the machine - I can look at files on it. All the fans are turning, and CPU temp is around 41.

He needs to press Del and enter the BIOS Setup. Firstly set time and date correctly. Secondly make sure all hardware options are set as the OS was installed. The problem could be that he is using a SATA hard disk. The installation could be installed in AHCI, RAID or IDE mode and this was changed somehow. Changing these options and testing will help.

He has to make sure the hard drive is set to be second boot device and CD-Rom first boot device. No disc must be in the Optical Drive and then attempt startup. If it still fails after doing the above he can insert his Windows 7 disc, boot from it and do a startup recovery/repair.

BIOS settings have to be correct though, power management, chipset etc.

 

[paulcrill]

Thanks all. After making sure everything was seated correctly, he reinstalled windows and it's working.