Page 1 of Help needed from PC expert - Can`t load my restore CD

Recently, I have been getting so fed-up with my PC playing up that I decided to start again from scratch and load my restore CD. The instructions said, start up the PC and load the restore disc before the machine boots up. Well I have tried and tried and I still cannot get the disc to run. I am now reaching my wits end. I believe my PC has more viruses than an NHS hospital, I assume this could be the root of the problem. I have tried running Ad-aware and spybot to no avail. I would appreciate your help to clean this thing DOWN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

PS. My PC is an e-machine EMonster, Pentium 3, Windows ME and 128mb Ram.

Have you been into the BIOS and made the CD or DVD drive the first Boot device? You`ll need to do this. You may also then be promted to press any Key to boot from CD.

Thanks, but I don`t know how to do this, would you please give simple step by step instructions.

Thanks

Telboy.

After switching the power on wait until you see white text on the screen, or you hear a beep from the PC speaker.
On seeing/hearing press Delete and you should be in a Blue Screen with several options.
Select Advanced BIOS features by using the scroll arrows and press enter when ADVANCED OPTIONS is highlighted.
Look in this menu for an option marked BOOT SEQUENCE and use the left/right scroll arrows to select CD Rom.
Press ESCAPE
Use the scroll arrows (Next to numeric pad) and highlight SAVE settings and press enter, this will save any changes you make.
Reboot and your system should boot from CD.

This should work.

Choagy FFCUK The SPL :)

Thanks Choagy, if you don`t hear from me, you will know that I have failed........

ALSO, before you fiddle with ANYTHING in the BIOS, note down ANY value you change so you can reset it if required.

Also, not all machines use the "Delete" key option, watch as the machine boots up and you should see a message at the bottom of the screen saying "Press (x) to enter setup", (x) being the option your machine uses.

Also, dependant on the model, there may be a "Press (x) for boot options", if that`s present, then use it, it`s a shortcut to tell the machine where to boot from and set it to CDRom drive.

On a last note, as Emachines usually auto boot from CD first...have you checked the disc when windows is running that 1) it shows in the CD drive, and 2) it has data on it?
(you won`t/shouldn`t be able to run it from there, just confirms your drive is working and the CD isn`t a duffer)

Jimbo : oÞ

This may be a daft question but is there a floppy boot disk in your restore pack as well ?.





(A.C.C Founder)

Quote:
This may be a daft question but is there a floppy boot disk in your restore pack as well ?.
He`s mentioned it`s an Emachine, can`t thikn of any of them that have ever had a floppy supplied.

good point though....`salways easy to miss the most obvious solution...

Jimbo : oÞ

Guys, still no joy. I got into the BIOS screen and believe it was already set to run from the DVD drive. I have also tried to re-format my C drive using, run, format C:, but this didn`t work either. All I got was the message "Drive C: is currently running in use by another process. aborting format".

I am now at my wits end :(

Quote:
Guys, still no joy. I got into the BIOS screen and believe it was already set to run from the DVD drive. I have also tried to re-format my C drive using, run, format C:, but this didn`t work either. All I got was the message "Drive C: is currently running in use by another process. aborting format".
you got a memory manager or similar running?
You ran a checkdisc lately?
Can you play any other CD in the drive?
Is yours a two disc restore disc, if so are you using disc 2?

Where did you get the disc with the format command on it? Is it a Windows boot disc?
You may be able to Fdisk the drive to remove the current partition, but this *could* render the emachine restore disc useless.

I did this years ago to a PB machine, took 3 hours for a restore for it to fail at the end. Numerous Techs had a look, all agreed the initial boot floppy was faulty and a new one ordered....
3 boot floopys later, with a supposed "hidden partition fix" included and another failure, they ordered a 4th, now we were at a month and a half...
(was an older PC I had sold to a mate and was resetting it before he got it)

Turned out the problem was, I was Fdisking and formatting the drive first, then loading the recovery media.
I decided to "try" deleting the partition completely, so basically I had no drive info.
Ran the restore CD and presto! Machine restored first time!

Turned out, in this case, the Restore disc actually did the partition load and setting itself, because I had partitioned the drive, it threw up invalid checksums!

I know that`s not much use to you right now, but it`s just to show there are sometimes hidden files you can`t get to on manufacturer "pre-load" machines, so be careful!

Dunno if I can find out more with the model number...you said it`s an EMonster...got the model too?

Jimbo : oÞ