Computer not booting

guyc · 11-22-2008, 09:42 AM

I recently had to purchase a brand new hard drive because the old one seemed to have been fried. What it was doing was not getting past the boot screen: it would get to the emachines logo, pause, then reboot itself, never getting past that logo. When I called tech support for emachines, they said that I would need a new hard drive and that there wasn't much more I could do since I couldn't even get into a responsive part of the computer. I took the tower to Best Buy where they opened it up and showed me which hard drive I needed. At the same time, however, I decided to upgrade the RAM, purchasing two 1GB RAM sticks. I put the new hard drive and RAM into the tower and purchased a restoration disk for my system straight emachines. Once I recieved the disk I tried to reformat my
computer. Now when I hard start the computer, sometimes I can get to the emachines logo and get into the BIOS screen, other times it goes into an intel boot screen, which looks like DOS, sometimes it does nothing, even though I can hear the fan running and the disk part trying to read. But I can never get the restoration disk to start restoring my computer. Even when I get into the BIOS screen and tell the computer to boot from the cd drive (the restoration disk being in there) it will act like it wants to and then the screen will glitch and freeze. My question is would your advice be to put back in the original RAM sticks and see if that works because I am reading a lot of things online stating that RAM is one of the big reasons why a computer may not boot. My only other thought,
my fear actually, is that the motherboard has gone bad, but I don't know if the computer would be trying to do anything if that were the case. Or do you know of any other fixes that I could try. Thank you for any help you can give.

OregonMike · 11-22-2008, 05:53 PM

What OS are you using? Do you have startup disks (not CDs)?

**OldGrayGary** · 11-23-2008, 12:22 AM

Hi guyc

Do try putting the old memory modules back in, and trying the recovery disks again. If that works, then check the manual for your model, and see if the modules you bought are compatible. If yes, install one - and then see if the system runs OK with it in. If no - run diagnostics ( http://www.memtest.org ). If yes - then put in the other (by itself) and test. If still OK, try both in at once.

Make sure that the hard drive you bought is compatible with the Bios on the motherboard as well. Depending on how old the PC is, it might have trouble with a hard drive larger than 127gb.

Also note: if the motherboard in your eMachines PC has ever been replaced by a non-eMachines motherboard, the recovery disk is likely to fail.

Best of luck
. . . Gary

P.S. ... if the PC reboots at odd moments - even after a successful reinstall from the Recovery Disks -- and no error messages are produced - you may want to try things with a different power supply.

11-22-2008, 09:42 AM	#1 (permalink)
guyc Registered User Join Date: Nov 2008 Posts: 1 OS: windows xp	Computer not booting I recently had to purchase a brand new hard drive because the old one seemed to have been fried. What it was doing was not getting past the boot screen: it would get to the emachines logo, pause, then reboot itself, never getting past that logo. When I called tech support for emachines, they said that I would need a new hard drive and that there wasn't much more I could do since I couldn't even get into a responsive part of the computer. I took the tower to Best Buy where they opened it up and showed me which hard drive I needed. At the same time, however, I decided to upgrade the RAM, purchasing two 1GB RAM sticks. I put the new hard drive and RAM into the tower and purchased a restoration disk for my system straight emachines. Once I recieved the disk I tried to reformat my computer. Now when I hard start the computer, sometimes I can get to the emachines logo and get into the BIOS screen, other times it goes into an intel boot screen, which looks like DOS, sometimes it does nothing, even though I can hear the fan running and the disk part trying to read. But I can never get the restoration disk to start restoring my computer. Even when I get into the BIOS screen and tell the computer to boot from the cd drive (the restoration disk being in there) it will act like it wants to and then the screen will glitch and freeze. My question is would your advice be to put back in the original RAM sticks and see if that works because I am reading a lot of things online stating that RAM is one of the big reasons why a computer may not boot. My only other thought, my fear actually, is that the motherboard has gone bad, but I don't know if the computer would be trying to do anything if that were the case. Or do you know of any other fixes that I could try. Thank you for any help you can give.

11-22-2008, 05:53 PM	#2 (permalink)
OregonMike Registered User Join Date: Nov 2008 Posts: 9 OS: Windoze 98SE	Re: Computer not booting What OS are you using? Do you have startup disks (not CDs)?

11-23-2008, 12:22 AM	#3 (permalink)
OldGrayGary Mentor, Microsoft Support Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: Woodland Hills, CA Posts: 2,240 OS: Windows 98se/2000/XP/Vista	Re: Computer not booting Hi guyc Do try putting the old memory modules back in, and trying the recovery disks again. If that works, then check the manual for your model, and see if the modules you bought are compatible. If yes, install one - and then see if the system runs OK with it in. If no - run diagnostics ( http://www.memtest.org ). If yes - then put in the other (by itself) and test. If still OK, try both in at once. Make sure that the hard drive you bought is compatible with the Bios on the motherboard as well. Depending on how old the PC is, it might have trouble with a hard drive larger than 127gb. Also note: if the motherboard in your eMachines PC has ever been replaced by a non-eMachines motherboard, the recovery disk is likely to fail. Best of luck . . . Gary P.S. ... if the PC reboots at odd moments - even after a successful reinstall from the Recovery Disks -- and no error messages are produced - you may want to try things with a different power supply. __________________ Last edited by OldGrayGary; 11-23-2008 at 12:28 AM.