Of course, there may be a number of things that have gone wrong, but
there is a good chance that it is your motherboard battery.
Your computer is probably several years old now, and the battery on the
motherboard may have worn out. CMOS memory that stores your BIOS
settings uses a very small amount of current that is supplied by the
battery when the computer is powered down. After three or four years
that battery wears out and the CMOS settings are lost, with the BIOS
reverting to their default values. If the default location for the
system disk does not eventually reach your hard drive (for example it
first looks at the floppy and then the cd rom and then gives up), then
it cannot find the system disc, i.e. the hard drive, and you receive
that error message.
Most motherboard batteries are CRXXXX where XXXX is some number. Look
on the mb for the battery and find the number on it. You can probably
find a replacement for it at Radio Shack or Wal-Mart for between two and
three dollars.
If you replace the battery, then you have to go into the BIOS settings
and set the default locations for the boot order. (Other settings may
have been lost, too.) If a new battery does not solve the problem, you
are only out a couple of bucks, and you will have a new battery on the
mb.
If you have a manual for your computer and/or motherboard, you can check
and see what "one beep" represents. It may, however, be misleading.
I am not sure what you mean by "Can't get into setup." If Windows does
not boot, you can't get into anything except the BIOS. If you mean that
you can't get into BIOS, then that is not a good sign. However, if you
get an invalid system disk message, then BIOS are surely working (more
or less) and you should be able to access them. You can look and see if
the boot order is incorrect. Change it and see if Windows boots
properly.
HTH
Dean Kukral
----- Original Message -----
From: "Orrin Bendfelt" <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Saturday, January 01, 2000 1:43 AM
Subject: [PCBUILD] Boot?
Running XP SP2, pentium 4, 1G RAM
Last shutdown was normal. Started today, get one beep then
message saying "Invalid system
disc". There is no floppy in drive. Reseated all connectors,
video card and RAM. Can`t get
in to setup.
Thanks for any suggestions.
Orrin Bendfelt
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