Dropped My Computer
I have this IBM Aptiva 572 that was manufactured sometime around 1999. I set it up to run Windows 98. I have been using this machine for quite a while. I use this machine to make audio CDs, make parts of web pages, access the internet, keep track of financial records etc. One day I was moving out and I had held the machine incorrectly. I had held the machine in such a way that my hand released the case from the internal workings of the computer and it all fell onto the concrete. I immediately took it back inside to test and see if it would be able to run, however that was not the case. I picked it up, packed it away until I was done moving and could unpack it.
When I would turn this computer on, it would start to load windows to the point that you get to the desktop and then the machine would freeze at that point. I just did not know what I was going to do. Upon testing, I found that the hard drive was the problem. I tried to re-format the hard drive and then re-install windows. I was able to format the drive successfully. The windows installation on the drive was not so successful. Actually at various points of the install, the system would crash. It was apparent to me that the hard drive suffered some sort of impact damage when it was dropped.
I was able to locate a replacement hard drive for this unit. I installed the new drive. Before I could get to started with the formatting, I made sure that the machine recognized that the hard drive was connected. I first went into the BIOS settings screen to see if the machine recognizes the hard drive which it did. I also ran a live disk of Bart PE to make sure that the hard drive was present and working. Bart PE is a live disk of Windows XP that allows you to do some basic things on a computer that does not have an operating system installed. It’s a Portable Environment of Windows XP with limited functions. It will allow you to move files around, basic network support, virus check, and a few other basic things.
Once I have established that the hard drive is working, I proceeded to do the setup process. Another handy tool that I have is called the MT Utilities disk. It’s similar to those old boot floppies for system utilities such as format, fdisk, etc. This is a bootable CDR that contains all the utilities that you need in order to get a machine that has just hardware and no software ready for an operating system. First I had to format the hard drive. Once the format was complete, I pulled out the official Windows 98 SE installation CD Rom and proceeded to install it into the computer. The installation procedure was completed without a hang-up or a failure.
In this case I was very lucky that more parts were not damaged as a result of the unit being dropped. It turned out that something bad happened to the original hard drive that I had installed. When I would attempt to run windows on it, the system was unstable. I essentially eliminated the problem by replacing the faulty hard drive, formatting the new drive, and then installing Windows 98 on it. Now as a result of the repair, the computer works, it’s reliable. The best part of it all is that It did not cost anything to repair because I had the parts that I needed. In fact all that I needed was a new hard drive to solve the problem and it worked.
Paul Wilson Jr has been fixing computers since 1994. For more of my computer repair techniques, articles, reports, and sweet deals on computer parts, visit Computer Repairs.
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