Thinkpads Forum

I heard an earpiercing whistle and it shut down. Every time I
try to reboot I get this screen :

http://home.comcast.net/~chris333242/screen.jpg

I hit F1, as it seems to be requesting, but it only gives me a blank screen.
I ran the hardware diagnostics at F8 on bootup and everything
is " OK". I am running Win2K pro on this 600e.
Appreciate any ideas as to how to proceed.
Cheers,
Chris

Try removing and reseating your hard drive.

Were you successfully running Win2000 prior to this problem, or were you installing it?

Thanks ! I have been running 2K for some time with no problems.
I just tried reseating HDD but its not that. On power up I get "196032Kb OK
and then "190" and afterwards all activity lights go out.

I had lost sound/audio completly and after everything checked out Ok, I decided to uninstall the Ver3 PowerDVD program because it was freezing up when I tried to go into its 'config' section to see if any audio got turned off there.

Few days later I'm either in Thunderbird email or Firefox and it crashed.

Chris

STOP what you are doing right now

error 190 is a bad battery, something is wrong with your battery. Replace it but don't keep doing what you are (turning it on and off) because you will damage your EEPROM checksum CRC2.

Take out the battery and use it or buy a new battery but don't keep the dead battery in and try to use it.

well now that I looked at your drawing, does it boot from a floppy or CD rom?

Took out the battery and tried to boot it Chris but all I get is the
same memory check, but nothing else - no 190.
The battery is a rebuilt one about 4 months old and was holding charge as of a few weeks ago when I checked.

Not sure I understand your Q re booting from floppy or Cd.
I have the 4 boot disk floppies that w2k uses, and an external floppy drive.
I also have the Win2000 CD. I tried to boot with the CD but it started to install Win2000 and I aborted it. I tried to boot with the first floppy inserted
but nothing came up.
I think I need to try and change the boot sequence? If yes? How ?
Thanks !

Ok well if it boots from your windows 2000 install CD than there is no hardware problem with the exception of the harddrive being bad.

Sounds like your harddrive died...

Now its giving a 78-301 error - whats that ?
I can still get into diagnostics with F8 and the HDD test runs as " OK"
Are you sure that it is 'dead' or, as Dr Frankenstien
would say: ' temporarily dead ' ?

EDIT: IBM site says 301 is keyboard- I ran the keyboard diagnostics on
every key and they show as good. Advanced diagnostics section shows keyboard as 'connected'

In my experience, a 190 error can give you odd results until you put in a working battery.

and I don't know what you're doing, but F8 isn't in the manual as a way to get into diagnostics. You use F1 to get into EZSetup and select Test from there.

Youre right its F1-thats what I was using-sorry, not F8
By battery I thought you meant the main battery - That one is good I think.
I just checked the small coin sized yellow cmos battery that is in the memory compartment and it only reads 0.52 volts. I've ordered a new one and I will see if thats the cause.
Thanks

This may seem strange, but I've seen the exact same screen while trying to install SuSE 7.2 on a Toughbook CF-25. It was caused by lilo not being installed correctly, for me it wanted to boot the system from a floppy disk.

Maybe if you somehow got all the settings back on default maybe your lap top should just work fine. I had that once on my Thinkpad 600, it gave me errors like that once.

Changed cmos battery - not that. It was the hard drive that was dead.
I've never had a hard drive die on me in 10 years so I wasn't willing to accept that that was it. Thanks to all !
Cheers,
Chris.

parangles wrote:I've never had a hard drive die on me in 10 years so I wasn't willing to accept that that was it.

You must live a Saintly life!

I would guess your system was trying to boot from a floppy, and the floppy was pulled while in use.


Change the Boot sequence by tapping F1 and entering "power on"
Then you can reset it, and enter in a list of boot options.

But replacing your battery seems critical as the moment.

And I recomend you do so.

You may also be losing your motherboard.

" I would guess your system was trying to boot from a floppy, and the floppy was pulled while in use. "
Negative- it died while I was browsing the internet - the original hitachi hard drive had been noisy for a month or so, and I should have ignored the IBM site's claim that hard drive noise is normal, and cloned the drive. Ah well, next time.

YOUR HARD DRIVE CAN STILL BE COLONED!!!!!!!!

I hope you diden't toss it.

Stick your hardrive in the freezer over night, and then while it's still cold you should be able to recover data off of it, you can also try spinning it
and smacking it on your hands a few time.
If those don't work let me know, i will look at my list "200 ways to recover a hardrive"

the "refrigerator" technique is one of the most widely held and most persistent myths about hard drives.

Actually after you pull it out of the freezer, a little dab of chocolate fudge and whipped cream go a long way too. . .

YOUR HARD DRIVE CAN STILL BE COLONED!!!!!!!!

Goodness....I don't think I want to see a HDD "COLONED"

That sounds somewhat painful, don't you think?

christopher_wolf wrote:

YOUR HARD DRIVE CAN STILL BE COLONED!!!!!!!!

Goodness....I don't think I want to see a HDD "COLONED"

That sounds somewhat painful, don't you think?

ROTFL

Reminds me of a Steve Martin movie I saw once with Sarah Jessica Parker. She suggested he get a 'High Colonic". His stride changed somewhat afterward. The movie is: L.A. Story. [It Figures.]

christopher_wolf wrote:

YOUR HARD DRIVE CAN STILL BE COLONED!!!!!!!!

Goodness....I don't think I want to see a HDD "COLONED"

That sounds somewhat painful, don't you think?

WAIT! You mean to say you're NOT supposed to colon the hard drive? Oh CRAP this is going to be a long story I'm gonna have to tell my family.

( just kidding )