Trying to reinstall Vista Home Premium 32 bit

[learninmypc]

In post 44 it says to move but it doesn't say whether to slide or lift & move, so how do I move it? I simply don't want to mess it up any worse than it is already. I have no special tools either.

 

[Cycloid Torus]

These are little copper posts rising from the motherboard and they are connected with a 'jumper' - which is a push on / pull off (designed by Dr. Doolittle, I think). I use a 4" pair of tweezers, but needle-nose pliers do this well as long as you do not squeeze hard. Grasp the jumper and pull gently. Installation is the reverse.

 

[learninmypc]

Where the pencil tip is,correct? Better safe than sorry

 

[bazz2004]

You changed the button battery which was a good idea but now you are messing about with jumpers and worrying about passwords which may not be set anyway. Near the start there's a screen shot where the boot order was floppy disk, CDROM drive then hard drive. If nothing's doing with the floppy the system would look next for a CD so that looked to be correct. A later screen shot shows that the CDROM is now set after the hard drive which cannot do anything because there's no longer a working OS. The CDROM is now listed in the bios as the fourth drive and what looks odd to me is that it is listed as a DVD-ram drive. DVD ram drives take a special DVD disk. You have managed to make changes to the bios so maybe go back and work at that.

 

[learninmypc]

You changed the button battery which was a good idea but now you are messing about with jumpers and worrying about passwords which may not be set anyway. Near the start there's a screen shot where the boot order was floppy disk, CDROM drive then hard drive. If nothing's doing with the floppy the system would look next for a CD so that looked to be correct. A later screen shot shows that the CDROM is now set after the hard drive which cannot do anything because there's no longer a working OS. The CDROM is now listed in the bios as the fourth drive and what looks odd to me is that it is listed as a DVD-ram drive. DVD ram drives take a special DVD disk. You have managed to make changes to the bios so maybe go back and work at that.

Ok, I asked the owner if DVD's played in it & he said yes so I have no idea what a "special DVD disk" is.
It was my understanding when installing a new OS the CD/DVD drive is supposed to be set as the first to boot from which is what I thought I had done. I will boot it back up & try to put it back where it was.
Can you explain this better "worrying about passwords which may not be set anyway.".?

 

[Cycloid Torus]

Your pencil is pointing at CLR_CMOS. The one below it is CLR_PWD. They both appear to be jumpering "1-2".

As I recall, we were looking at this just to confirm that the jumpers were correctly placed..which you can check in the manual.

@bazz2004 You may be correct about the Optical Drive. If I were looking for a culprit, then I might swap this baby out for a known good Lite-On - this IS an old computer. The recognition of the device on the "MAIN" page of BIOS does not change the BOOT ORDER - it just confirms the device is recognized. What has been bugging us is that the BIOS was not updating on a change to BOOT ORDER. F10 was not getting a SAVE.

 

[bazz2004]

I have some DVD RAM disks for my Panasonic DVD/hard drive combo unit and they don't generally work in older computer drives. The bios does appear to have saved a change in boot order. Unfortunately, it's now become another problem because the boot order is wrong. I do remember having trouble working out how to make such changes with my first desktop.

 

[learninmypc]

Ok, there was neither an admin password or user password other than the password the owner used to get to the desktop.

 

[learninmypc]

Ok, before this gets any further, I need to know something since I don't want to waste anybodies time. IF the BIOS & password gets successfully reset, will I be able to install W7 on this pc? Resetting one or both is something I have NEVER done.TIA

 

[Cycloid Torus]

GOAL: get installation disc to boot.

I do not think Password needs reset - we were just checking to confirm that the jumpers were in the proper position (I think they are and you were going to check in the system manual). Then, I think removing the old coin battery and replacing it has successfully reset the BIOS - you might still try F5 - Set to Defaults - then F10 to Save - then do a restart and look into the BOOT ORDER on the BOOT tab.

The point of all this is to get the installation disc to boot.

If you cannot get installation disc to work, then the last possibility is to rig a second Optical drive on one of the SATA connectors and then set BOOT ORDER to that - and try to boot the installation disc in that device.

 

[learninmypc]

Ok, I'll "TRY" to try F5 set to default rtc & post back>

 

[learninmypc]

Well, no changes & I have no extra optical drive to hook to anything. I sadly think this is the end

 

[bazz2004]

It is an old computer and worth practically nothing. Even if you do manage to get to where you can use an install disk it's no way certain that Windows will install. You will have trouble identifying any defective hardware because you haven't a load of bits to swap around. So yes I don't think this is a worthwhile project.

 

[learninmypc]

@bazz2004 & @Cycloid Torus , I thank you both, its been an interesting tour inside a pc

 

[learninmypc]

Ok, this pc has been discarded, should the harddrive be removed ???

 

[learninmypc]

@Cycloid Torus @bazz2004 should the harddrive be removed for security reasons ??

 

[Cycloid Torus]

Depends - if anything personal or confidential, I would either 'zero' it out with CCleaner or spike it.

 

[HyperPete]

Take the hard drive apart. There are cool (Neomidium) magnets inside that are fun to play with. That will also effectively render the hard drive unreadable (to most individuals.)

 

[learninmypc]

Yes, I've taken a few apart & enjoyed the magnets, thank you