Diane,
>did." But...it turns out the floppy cable was off by one pin, so they
think that's what was causing the non-system disk errors. What a
dimwit I am!
I have never been thrilled with the ribbon cables that computers use. I
guess we can blame IBM and the need to continue compatability. In the bad
old days one could easily plug a ribbon cable in backwards. Somewhere along
the line I learned that the red side of the cable go toward the power supply
connector.
Wow, you plugged in the cable with a one pin offset. NO you are not a
dimwit, just not yet an experienced techie. I have done things equally
ignorant and I had no excuse, I was an electronics tech before I got my
first computer.
>He suggested I put a fresh installation of XP on the new drive and
start fresh, and also get rid of the 2nd XP installation that wasn't
working.
Yes, it would only take up drive space. After reading this message I am the
one who feel like a dimwit. I recommended replacing the computer? I think
this is the thread where I said that. But at least I am vindicated, sort of
when the 'tech' must have gotten the floppy working before replacing the
cmos battery. I insisted that the battery would not keep the floppy or the
hard drive from working. I suppose that if one of these had some extremely
weird config. and that was lot in the CMOS memory, that might explain the
drive problems. But floppies are so basic that I just couldn't buy that
notion.
>I have no idea why--the CD/DVD burners are
in the Primary slot and the HD's are in the Secondary slot.
Yes, this is an odd configuration. But easy to understand that someone who
did not know any better might set things up that way. The standard is, Boot
drive in Primary master and any second hard drive in Primary slave. It is
never a good idea to mix the CD/DVD drives on the same cable as the hard
drive since optical drives are inherently slower and the drive hardware
defaults to the slower device on the chain.
>suggested putting one slot between the video driver, sound card, etc.
>They're kinda crunched together.
Yep, those cards may tend to get hotter then the others. The ideal might be
to plug a 'fat' card in an end slot, especially if you can orient to card
components to be pointed away from the slots. If either the video card or
the audio card have really small components, that is they are probably not
drawing a lot of power then their orientation might not be as important.
>That's it. That 10-minute quick check turned into and hour and only
cost me $29.99 (including the battery).
Wow, that IS a good price. Way better than Best Buy;s Geek Squad.
>Installing XP fresh when I don't have my 98 CD anymore is going to be a big
>pain.
Not as much of a pain as reinstalling your applications. Newer computers
have
rescue disks that install not only the OS but the bundled programs. But then
you have to uninstall the junk programs.. :-) But that's still simpler than
separately
reinstalling the OS and your applications.
>You guys are a little handicapped, only having what I tell you in my
>inadequate way what the problem is--and yet you were right on! Amazing!
Yes, troubleshooting by 'remote control; is not too easy. A long time ago I
worked for Allied Radio and sometimes I had to troubleshoot peoples
electronics... by mail. :-) I also help my brother troubleshoot his
computer. He's been using it for several years and is still a flat out
newbie. I am giving him my old computer and I am writing gobs of text files
that I hope will help him navigate better. :-)
Jim
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