Just moved a PC to work - now it won't boot!

[John Gray]

Any bright ideas for the following problem?

I moved an old HP system unit with XP Home installed on it to a new location (my place of work) and now I just get the BIOS screen which says Setup / Boot Menu / etc, and it never goes any further. Pressing Esc and F8 give no results, the screen just stays there.

The hard drive appears to spin up, but the orange light (hard disk activity?) at the lower front of the system unit is on continuously. I can''t boot from a CD, either. I've tried disconnecting the Molex power plugs from the rear of the hard disk (and also from the DVD-RW device), with no results. No beeping or anything.

The only thing I can think of to do when I get to work is to reseat memory sticks.

Any other suggestions, please? Thanks!

[viking33]

Was this off line for any long period of time?
Check the BIOS battery?
Reset all plug in cards and plugs?
Always check the easy things first.

[tedshemyers]

Check seating on all items, RAM, cables, etc. At times moves can unseat the darndest things.

[Leif]

Pressing Esc and F8 give no results, the screen just stays there.

Is the keyboard being seen?

[John Gray]

I think I have resolved the problem to having the Molex power cable disconnected to the second DVD drive (which was having inability-to-eject problems) but leaving the data bus cable connected. If I remove the entire (second IDE) bus cable from the motherboard entirely, the PC booted quite happily. Replugging the bus cable, and removing the bus cable data plug from the second DVD drive seems also to work.

Would others agree that there shouldn't be a problem with leaving a bus cable connected to an unpowered device?

[Leif]

Would others agree that there shouldn't be a problem with leaving a bus cable connected to an unpowered device?

I would be inclined to unplug any bus cable connected to an un-powered device. There could well be some loading on the bus - but this depends on the circuitry it's going in to, and it could well be 'hot-swappable', meaning it was OK. But, to play safe, and on the basis you'd have to open up the case anyway to re-plug in power, I'd un-plug the bus too.

[John Gray]

Thanks, Leif - I had presumed that no power would mean no problems with the data bus cable. Since it is IDE, the chances of it being hot-swappable are vanishingly small! I have left removed power and bus plugs, and all is well.

You find out yet another anomaly every minute!

[viking33]

Would others agree that there shouldn't be a problem with leaving a bus cable connected to an unpowered device?
--------------------------------------------------
I would certainly think there would not be a problem. I know I have left cables disconnected only on one end and have not had any troubles. Unless there is a sensor on the mating socket, why or how would the machine know if there just a few more feet of cable extending from the device unless there was also a load of some sort on the other end?
The same idea applies when you might add a USB device. You can install the software, then plug in the USB cable. Doesn't matter if you have it plugged into the USB hub and then plug in the the device after installing the software.

[Leif]

Would others agree that there shouldn't be a problem with leaving a bus cable connected to an unpowered device?
--------------------------------------------------
I would certainly think there would not be a problem. I know I have left cables disconnected only on one end .....

Unless I am misreading one of you, I think John is talking about leaving a data cable connected both ends without power to the device, and you are referring to a data cable connected only at one end...?

If you are connecting a data cable, I would have thought the data/address/whatever lines must be connecting to some circuitry, and hence there could be some loading (albeit only a few hundred KOhms) on those lines. Theoretically, you could/would be applying a voltage to an input of a device that has no supply and possibly damaging the peripheral, no?

[viking33]

Would others agree that there shouldn't be a problem with leaving a bus cable connected to an unpowered device?
--------------------------------------------------
I would certainly think there would not be a problem. I know I have left cables disconnected only on one end .....

Unless I am misreading one of you, I think John is talking about leaving a data cable connected both ends without power to the device, and you are referring to a data cable connected only at one end...?

If you are connecting a data cable, I would have thought the data/address/whatever lines must be connecting to some circuitry, and hence there could be some loading (albeit only a few hundred KOhms) on those lines. Theoretically, you could/would be applying a voltage to an input of a device that has no supply and possibly damaging the peripheral, no?

You are right, Leif.
I think I was the one doing the misreading. I thought John was talking about only disconnecting one end of the cable. However, I do think it depends on the design of the particular device input itself, as to weather there is any loading from an unpowered circuit. I would suspect
( or hope ) not.

[wasbit]

Glad you got it sorted John. Fairly common problem for transported PCs.

When problem solving it is common to remove the molex power connectors from installed drives (with the power off), which means that the bios & therefore Windows won't see the drive(s). You are correct, they are not hot swappable. Neither, FYI, are the PS2 mouse & keyboard.

I don't remove the IDE (ATA/PATA) cable & I haven't heard of anyone else removing them either, except when substituting them to see if they have gone faulty.

BTW if you have the old 40 wire IDE cables try & replace them with 80 wire IDE cables which are faster.
Our £1 shop had some of the round type on display recently.

USB is different as it is plug & play.

HTH

Regards
wasbit