[steven1]

well i heard some talking about reseating the graphics card, is that likely to work? also would i be able to get a graphics card cheaply, like under £20, also would a novice be able to install the card? well i'm good at fiddly things anyway, i took the housing of before and blew round everything incase it was just dust,....i am desperate

[alex]

Originally Posted by Dave Hybrid If it were boot.ini then wouldn't he get a message along the lines of "operating system missing" or simular?

Nope, the drive just wouldn't 'spin up'.

It's also telling that he's stating the cpu fan is spinning and the power light comes on.

I really do think its that, although, its hard to be definate without seeing the thing

[Dave Hybrid]

I've learnt something new tonight then, and yes I agree mate hardware faults are difficult even when in front of the PC.

Steven.

You can try re seating the graphics card, one screw and a pull will remove it. The just plug it back in. Make sure you are earthed so not to conduct any static to the sensitive parts.

Failing that ask Alex to guide you through reconfiguring your hard drive.

Dave.

[steven1]

ok i'll do that now, by the way, i'm really greatful for both your help

[steven1]

just re seated grx card, still nothing

[steven1]

reconfiguring my hard drive, is it difficult to do?, will i lose any files?, how likely is it to solve my problem?

[alex]

Before we go down that route, can i ask two questions:

1) How confident are you in your abilities with windows and hardware? (a no b.s answer please).

2) Is the pc still covered under warranty?

If you're not very confident i'd advise not to go down this route as i may be wrong and messing with the boot file could only compound your problems. Again, its difficult sometimes to confirm what the problem is just from a post. The simple fact the moderator and myself both arn't sure (and are disagreeing) testifies to this.

My concern is for your coursework, if i'm wrong them you lose valuable time for retrieving the data.

If the pc is still covered under warranty, just take it to them. If its not, and you're not very confident i'd advise taking it to a shop for fixing.

I'll happily talk you through it, but be sure of which way you want to go first.

Also, going forward, once you get it sorted it might be worth investing in a cheap external drive so you can save copies of files, that way if your pc crashes and you can't get at your data, you'll have a usb external hdd you can just plug into your laptop. Or at the very least copy files to a cd.

[steven1]

well i'm quite confident with using software, however the most complicated thing i've ever done hardware wise, is taking out the graphics card yesterday, so obviously i've got no experience. Having said that i think i would quited capable, to be honest ur probly a better judge of that than me considering i really know how difficult it is to do. And the warranty ran out in 2005

By the way, my brother has posted an old 16mb graphics card to me, and all going well i should receive it tomorrow morning. will a 16mb card work on a relatively modern computer?

[Dave Hybrid]

Originally Posted by steven1 By the way, my brother has posted an old 16mb graphics card to me, and all going well i should receive it tomorrow morning. will a 16mb card work on a relatively modern computer?

Providing it has the same slot type as your old gfx card it will work fine.

[mcbee]

It sounds that your computer isn't POSTing which means that it is not getting as far as windows. Before windows loads the computer goes through the POST check when you should hear a single beep if all is ok. You would also hear the fans running and the Hard drive spinning up as well. If you don't hear the HD spinning your problem arises before windows. If the BIOS cannot find a boot file or operating system you may get a message stating so and telling you to load a bootable disc. If the problem was in the Hard drive you would still have a text screen as your monitor would still function. It is not easy to pinpoint your problem without an accurate description of the events that do take place when you switch on. If there is a problem with your graphics card alone you should get a long continuous beep(I think) so there must be something else wrong. Switching off at the socket normally wouldn't wreck your computer. You need to do a hardware check before a software check. Can you describe accurately what happens when you switch on.