w2785 won't boot

[cisham]

I have two emachines and one had the power supply die. So I bought a new one and put it in, but it would not boot. I took the hdd out and put it into the other machine (they are both the same model w2785) it started up and said there was a disk error and the bios settings changed and that I had to do a system restore. So I shut down and put the original hdd back in it. Started it up and the hdd that was running good now did the same thing. I restored the hdd using the system restore disks after instalation it keeps coming up saying disk error do a restore or disk comand promp! It just won't boot. I tried it with both drives, same thing I know that I messed up putting that potentully bad drive in there and hope that I am not out of luck. I looked in the( cmos,cbios ?) but really don't know the settings. Can somone please help me undo my stupid move!

 

[gavinseabrook]

Usually you dont want to put a drive from one computer into the next and think that it will boot. Each hard drive has its own infromation of the hardware that was connected to the MOBO. If you move this drive to a different computer, then it wont recognize the hardware. Your best bet is to hook them up at they were originally and run the Windows XP disk to do a "REPAIR"

 

[cisham]

I have spent all day trying to get this w2785 to boot up. I only have restore disks that came with the emachine and they are symantec ghost copies. They do not have or will not let me do a repair. I have reinstalled the software to oem out of box. When I try to start up it tells me that I have to either reinstall the software or go to command prompt, at the command prompt what do you type in! And when I put the other hdd in it did change the cmos settings, where do I get the right bios or cmos settings for this emachines w2785. I did get a oem of xp-pro and put that in there and did try to do a repair it just keeps telling me that the settings are changed and it will not continue. So I took it out, but I did do a scandisk it's ok and then I went as far as trying to install xp-pro it said that a good copy of xp-home was already on c: and that it would cause conflicts so I exited xp-pro. The hdd runs and goes as far to boot as the emachines logo then says disk error need to do a restore. I need the cmos or bios settings and boot order and why can't I do a repair off the restore cd's. Windows xp-home has to be on their some place. Can someone please help a pc fool!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[raybay]

The W2785 is an eMachine purchased at Wal-Mart. You have one of the 14 models known to have major problems with motherboard failure. If it is more than one year old, the probable fix is to buy a new motherboard from www.emachines.com for $159.95 plus shipping.
Usually we will find that the hard drive, memory, modem, cpu fan, and cpu work, but the motherboard has failed. Some techs blame the power supply, but we find almost no relationship between the power supply and the motherboard, other than the failed motherboard will sometimes destroy the power supply.
You have no guarantee that the new eMachines motherboard will work any longer than the old one. You can replace that motherboard with one made for a machine other than eMachines, but then the hard drive will not work without a new install of windows XP... and the recovery disc set will not work.