moltensilver
03-21-2004, 09:20 AM
Wow... I don't know where to start with this one but I am going to try. I posted this in the vprMatrix specific forum as well but I figured perhaps you all could help as well.
I recently decided to open my vprMatrix 220A5 laptop case to look at the internal routing of the Wifi antenna (Turned out to be a big mistake). I was gentle (I thought) with the case to avoid any unloosening of the drive cables, etc. However, when I reassembled and rebooted the unit it would no longer boot.
The unit would come to the VPR logo screen, pause, blink the status lights, blink to a blackscreen and repeat. Occasionally it would stop on a black screen with a blinking cursor in the top left hand corner (Similar to a system with no operating system installed).
After checking to make sure I did not disconnect any cables I decided to boot the recovery CD hoping it would allow me access to view the partions on the drive. When the the Easy Restore program started. I received an error noting that the partition table sizes did not match and the program could correct it; which I agreed. (I can post the exact message from Easy Restore if needed. I can't find my notes right now.) The operation seemed to complete so I then decided to abort the restore at the prompt that all my data on the my drive would be destroyed.
After the program said that it corrected my partion table the computer continued the same symptoms. I decided to look in the setup and and the Primary HD seemed to detect to garbage characters that did not make sense in relation to the drive. At this point I decided that perhaps my opening of the case may have damaged the hard drive and I decided to order a 7200 RPM Hitachi HD 60 Gig and external enclosure to continue the repair of the computer.
After the new drive arrived, I installed it and began the recovery CD on the fresh drive. The installation seemed to be going fine until approx. the 73% mark where I received Error #1500 Bad boot signature byte and the recovery quit to dos. I rebooted and tried the recovery once more and received to same error at the same point.
The next day I decided to install the new 7200 RPM drive in the external enclosure and install on my other working laptop. The drive mounted fine and I installed a working NTFS primary DOS partion on the drive and it in turn mounted a letter in My Computer.
After I saw the drive was working properly, I decided to again install the drive into the VPR and run the recovery cd. I again received the message that the partition table sizes did not match (The same error as on the the original problem HD) and would I like to repair the issue. After agreeing, I received the error Error #1513 Bad Attribute position in file record at about the 75% mark. I then went into the BIOS and disabled the 32 bit and DMA modes and tried the recovery CD again to no avail.
At this point, I have a computer that I can not load the recovery cd to restore the OS. I tried to boot the drive via the external enclosure but I dont think our BIOS revision supports it. My next step is to contact Phoenix and hopefully upgrade the BIOS. as I had another computer that had simaliar issues with ATA66 drives that a BIOS update fixed.
I have no idea of two things. First what happened to cause this laptop not to boot and next why I can not reinstall the recovery CD? I am hoping that perhaps I damaged the ribbon cable and may order a replacement. However I think there is a chance that perhaps the motherboard or HD controlled was damaged or zapped.
I have been quite thorough trying to figure this out. Please help me with any ideas or suggestions you may have as I am in a really bad spot here. If you need more info or details please post and I provide any info I can.
Thanks in advance.
moltensilver
I recently decided to open my vprMatrix 220A5 laptop case to look at the internal routing of the Wifi antenna (Turned out to be a big mistake). I was gentle (I thought) with the case to avoid any unloosening of the drive cables, etc. However, when I reassembled and rebooted the unit it would no longer boot.
The unit would come to the VPR logo screen, pause, blink the status lights, blink to a blackscreen and repeat. Occasionally it would stop on a black screen with a blinking cursor in the top left hand corner (Similar to a system with no operating system installed).
After checking to make sure I did not disconnect any cables I decided to boot the recovery CD hoping it would allow me access to view the partions on the drive. When the the Easy Restore program started. I received an error noting that the partition table sizes did not match and the program could correct it; which I agreed. (I can post the exact message from Easy Restore if needed. I can't find my notes right now.) The operation seemed to complete so I then decided to abort the restore at the prompt that all my data on the my drive would be destroyed.
After the program said that it corrected my partion table the computer continued the same symptoms. I decided to look in the setup and and the Primary HD seemed to detect to garbage characters that did not make sense in relation to the drive. At this point I decided that perhaps my opening of the case may have damaged the hard drive and I decided to order a 7200 RPM Hitachi HD 60 Gig and external enclosure to continue the repair of the computer.
After the new drive arrived, I installed it and began the recovery CD on the fresh drive. The installation seemed to be going fine until approx. the 73% mark where I received Error #1500 Bad boot signature byte and the recovery quit to dos. I rebooted and tried the recovery once more and received to same error at the same point.
The next day I decided to install the new 7200 RPM drive in the external enclosure and install on my other working laptop. The drive mounted fine and I installed a working NTFS primary DOS partion on the drive and it in turn mounted a letter in My Computer.
After I saw the drive was working properly, I decided to again install the drive into the VPR and run the recovery cd. I again received the message that the partition table sizes did not match (The same error as on the the original problem HD) and would I like to repair the issue. After agreeing, I received the error Error #1513 Bad Attribute position in file record at about the 75% mark. I then went into the BIOS and disabled the 32 bit and DMA modes and tried the recovery CD again to no avail.
At this point, I have a computer that I can not load the recovery cd to restore the OS. I tried to boot the drive via the external enclosure but I dont think our BIOS revision supports it. My next step is to contact Phoenix and hopefully upgrade the BIOS. as I had another computer that had simaliar issues with ATA66 drives that a BIOS update fixed.
I have no idea of two things. First what happened to cause this laptop not to boot and next why I can not reinstall the recovery CD? I am hoping that perhaps I damaged the ribbon cable and may order a replacement. However I think there is a chance that perhaps the motherboard or HD controlled was damaged or zapped.
I have been quite thorough trying to figure this out. Please help me with any ideas or suggestions you may have as I am in a really bad spot here. If you need more info or details please post and I provide any info I can.
Thanks in advance.
moltensilver