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re: Screen goes blank after about 5 minutes Saturday, May 4, 2002 at 12:38 am Posted by Mike (116 messages posted) First things first. Why did you do the restore? Did you lose your operating system? Was the hard drive making noises at that time, or when did it start? If you haven't checked, your restore may have put your system standby or sleep time to 5 minutes. That seems a little short for a default time, but you could check, if you haven't. Also, what kind of errors are you getting? A computer can give lots of errors, and none of them mean the same thing. Errors like "file not found" "invalid boot sector" "non system disk" "error reading drive C:" "missing operating system" "bad or missing command.com" are not terrible errors by themselves, but when these start coming up together and in connection to a thumping drive, I would suspect the drive has problems. Now, don't take my word for it, so get it checked out by someone you trust. And, a second opinion is always good. At the very least, post back here with more information of what is going on. And, if the drive is only making these thumping noises on boot up, but not after, it could be a boot sector going bad and you might be able to use it as a second drive for data storage, if you decide the drive is dying. On Friday, May 3, 2002 at 7:28 pm, Stacy Rogers wrote: >I have a Gateway Astro all in one. Recently I had to do a restore. Now I get all >kinds of error messages and after running any thing for about 5 minutes the screen >will go blank. The hard drive spins and makes a knocking sound and on restart I >get either Insert boot disk in drive A or Unable to write to drive c. Anyone >know what happened? [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Screen goes blank after about 5 minutes Saturday, May 4, 2002 at 5:31 am Posted by Stacy Rogers (7 messages posted) I was using the computer while chatting on line and all of a sudden without notice the whole system cut off. When I tried to turn it back on it would get half way thru the boot process and shut back off. A friend helped me do the restore and for a few days it worked fine. Then the noises started. The Errors consist of: "Unable to write to Drive C:" "Invalid boot disk,Insert Boot Disk into Drive A:", but you can shut off the computer and wait 5 minutes turn it on again and it will fully load. While trying to run several programs including Scandisk or Nortons Disk Doctor. after about 5 minutes the screen goes blank and computer will stop responding. Ctrl+Alt+ Del will not even shut it off. On Saturday, May 4, 2002 at 12:38 am, Mike wrote: >First things first. Why did you do the restore? Did you lose your operating system? > Was >the hard drive making noises at that time, or when did it start? If you haven't >checked, >your restore may have put your system standby or sleep time to 5 minutes. That seems >a little short for a default time, but you could check, if you haven't. Also, what >kind of >errors are you getting? A computer can give lots of errors, and none of them mean >the >same thing. Errors like "file not found" "invalid boot sector" "non system disk" >"error reading >drive C:" "missing operating system" "bad or missing command.com" are not terrible >errors by >themselves, but when these start coming up together and in connection to a thumping >drive, >I would suspect the drive has problems. Now, don't take my word for it, so get it >checked out >by someone you trust. And, a second opinion is always good. At the very least, >post back >here with more information of what is going on. And, if the drive is only making >these thumping >noises on boot up, but not after, it could be a boot sector going bad and you might >be able to >use it as a second drive for data storage, if you decide the drive is dying. > > [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Screen goes blank after about 5 minutes Saturday, May 4, 2002 at 10:04 am Posted by Mike (116 messages posted) Did your friend reformat the drive, during this restore process? He should. It is the only way to be sure a system glitch is gone. I understand, if this isn't possible, because you WILL lose any data you can't back up. But, those errors are telling me you have a boot sector problem. To be sure it isn't just invalid information on the drive, I would wipe out fdisk and redo the complete process of formatting, then do the restore again. This would then tell me if the drive is the cause of the errors you are getting. The sound of a drive should never be very loud, or have any 'clunking' sounds. And, check to see if there is a lot of dust on any of the chips, or around your processor. And check around the fan and intake too. Make sure all fans are working and there is nothing obstructing the flow of air through the compuer and over the inside parts of the computer. If a processor gets too hot, it will shut down. Other chips can get hot, too, and if dust is allowed to collect long enough, it can do some strange things. As always, don't take my word for this. You should always get a second opinion on what to do. On Saturday, May 4, 2002 at 5:31 am, Stacy Rgoers wrote: > > > >I was using the computer while chatting on line and all of a sudden without notice >the whole system cut off. When I tried to turn it back on it would get half way >thru the boot process and shut back off. A friend helped me do the restore and for >a few days it worked fine. Then the noises started. The Errors consist of: "Unable >to write to Drive C:" "Invalid boot disk,Insert Boot Disk into Drive A:", but you >can shut off the computer and wait 5 minutes turn it on again and it will fully load. > While trying to run several programs including Scandisk or Nortons Disk Doctor. > after about 5 minutes the screen goes blank and computer will stop responding. >Ctrl+Alt+ Del will not even shut it off. [Reply or follow-up to this message] Tip: Use one of the [Reply or follow-up to this message] links above to add a message to this thread Search this forum Start a new thread on a different subject Report abuse of the forum Return to the Windows 98 Discussion Forum