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Help with zombie computer

Volana
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Ok, so i have this old home pc that was a custom prebuilt. the motherboard is toast. parents got 2 old optiplex 780's, one is windows xp and one is 7, basically identical. I'm taking the hdd from the prebuilt and popping it into the win7 computer, but so far it doesnt want to work. I'm currently running tests on the thing and would like some pointers on how to get the damn thing working. some other info is that the prebuilt has an amd processor (AM3 cpu socket). the XP computer is still in ddr2 and uses a vPro processor. I also have a good computer case (nzxt source 220 mid tower). I also have a whole pile of old dell laptops to scavenge if i want, but they may not be the easiest of solutions.most of the time when i try booting it says no boot drive found, so i went onto the BIOS and removed everything except the hdd from the boot list, and after a little while found myself running tests through some i-dont-even-know-what-it-is program. I'm pretty new to computers but absorb knowledge like a sponge so tell me whats going on, and please do get technical. (i am pretty good with computers tho, so dont go thinking im a noob or something)

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i cant even tell what the problem is. ok so you put a new HDD in another computer? and now that computer isnt working? 

I spent $2500 on building my PC and all i do with it is play no games atm & watch anime at 1080p(finally) watch YT and write essays...  nothing, it just sits there collecting dust...

Builds:

The Toaster Project! Northern Bee!

 

The original LAN PC build log! (Old, dead and replaced by The Toaster Project & 5.0)

Spoiler

"Here is some advice that might have gotten lost somewhere along the way in your life. 

 

#1. Treat others as you would like to be treated.

#2. It's best to keep your mouth shut; and appear to be stupid, rather than open it and remove all doubt.

#3. There is nothing "wrong" with being wrong. Learning from a mistake can be more valuable than not making one in the first place.

 

Follow these simple rules in life, and I promise you, things magically get easier. " - MageTank 31-10-2016

 

 

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2 minutes ago, Bananasplit_00 said:

i cant even tell what the problem is. ok so you put a new HDD in another computer? and now that computer isnt working? 

i forgot to mention that the new optiplexes didnt have hdd's. and no, its not working.

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2 minutes ago, Volana said:

i forgot to mention that the new optiplexes didnt have hdd's. and no, its not working.

ok thats probably because you have 2 OS installs and there is a boot conflict, change to boot order in the BIOS and that might fix it and then when you get in formate the drive you didnt boot from

I spent $2500 on building my PC and all i do with it is play no games atm & watch anime at 1080p(finally) watch YT and write essays...  nothing, it just sits there collecting dust...

Builds:

The Toaster Project! Northern Bee!

 

The original LAN PC build log! (Old, dead and replaced by The Toaster Project & 5.0)

Spoiler

"Here is some advice that might have gotten lost somewhere along the way in your life. 

 

#1. Treat others as you would like to be treated.

#2. It's best to keep your mouth shut; and appear to be stupid, rather than open it and remove all doubt.

#3. There is nothing "wrong" with being wrong. Learning from a mistake can be more valuable than not making one in the first place.

 

Follow these simple rules in life, and I promise you, things magically get easier. " - MageTank 31-10-2016

 

 

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2 hours ago, Bananasplit_00 said:

ok thats probably because you have 2 OS installs and there is a boot conflict, change to boot order in the BIOS and that might fix it and then when you get in formate the drive you didnt boot from

k. thanks. i would like to keep the stuff on it so ill have to back it up on my external drive, but other than that that should solve the problem.

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3 hours ago, Bananasplit_00 said:

ok thats probably because you have 2 OS installs and there is a boot conflict, change to boot order in the BIOS and that might fix it and then when you get in formate the drive you didnt boot from

yea it didnt fix anything... it still says it cant detect any sata drives... :/

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quick update, during boot it beeps and says it cant detect sata drives, if i push f1 to continue, it cant make it through the windows startup animation.

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was the hdd detected (by specific model number or serial number not "hard drive 1") in the bios or not? 

 

 

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3 minutes ago, Mrhappyjolly said:

was the hdd detected (by specific model number or serial number not "hard drive 1") in the bios or not? 

 

 

no. 

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the basic problem is the bios cannot see the harddrive you have plugged in, that must be resolved.

 

if you know the hdd is absolutely 100% functional, and you've even tried another sata cable to make sure that is working, and you've tried all the sata ports on the motherboard, (and the hdd has power - you will hear it spin up when you turn the computer on) the bios doesn't support the drive you are connecting to it.

 

check all what I said, come back  with update.

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3 minutes ago, Mrhappyjolly said:

the basic problem is the bios cannot see the harddrive you have plugged in, that must be resolved.

 

if you know the hdd is absolutely 100% functional, and you've even tried another sata cable to make sure that is working, and you've tried all the sata ports on the motherboard, (and the hdd has power - you will hear it spin up when you turn the computer on) the bios doesn't support the drive you are connecting to it.

 

check all what I said, come back  with update.

yup, so i need a different hard drive... lovely. 

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well maybe, what size HDD is it? thinking on, isn't there a way to run "detect drives" in the bios of these old machines... 

 

to be clear, the computer you are putting this into, has it ever worked? was there a drive in there already or not? your original post is confusing.

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3 minutes ago, Mrhappyjolly said:

well maybe, what size HDD is it? thinking on, isn't there a way to run "detect drives" in the bios of these old machines... 

 

to be clear, the computer you are putting this into, has it ever worked? was there a drive in there already or not? your original post is confusing.

it worked at one point, then the owner removed the drive to sell the computer. its a 3.5 inch drive.

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2 minutes ago, Mrhappyjolly said:

i mean't capacity... how many gb

 

320gb

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I don't know what else to advise you, basically you need to get the drive seen in the bios no matter what. What you can try though is a livecd of linux, just to make sure the computer actually works. 

 

bascially it's linux on a cd or usb drive... no hdd required to work.

 

http://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop/try-ubuntu-before-you-install

 

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10 minutes ago, Mrhappyjolly said:

I don't know what else to advise you, basically you need to get the drive seen in the bios no matter what. What you can try though is a livecd of linux, just to make sure the computer actually works. 

 

bascially it's linux on a cd or usb drive... no hdd required to work.

 

http://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop/try-ubuntu-before-you-install

 

so this thing is linux?

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10 hours ago, Mrhappyjolly said:

I don't know what else to advise you, basically you need to get the drive seen in the bios no matter what. What you can try though is a livecd of linux, just to make sure the computer actually works. 

 

bascially it's linux on a cd or usb drive... no hdd required to work.

 

http://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop/try-ubuntu-before-you-install

 

I tried it, i put ubuntu on a usb drive and tried to boot from it, it still wont work. it just keeps saying it failed to detect one or more drives during post.

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2 hours ago, Volana said:

I tried it, i put ubuntu on a usb drive and tried to boot from it, it still wont work. it just keeps saying it failed to detect one or more drives during post.

can you just remove the other drive and see if that works?

I spent $2500 on building my PC and all i do with it is play no games atm & watch anime at 1080p(finally) watch YT and write essays...  nothing, it just sits there collecting dust...

Builds:

The Toaster Project! Northern Bee!

 

The original LAN PC build log! (Old, dead and replaced by The Toaster Project & 5.0)

Spoiler

"Here is some advice that might have gotten lost somewhere along the way in your life. 

 

#1. Treat others as you would like to be treated.

#2. It's best to keep your mouth shut; and appear to be stupid, rather than open it and remove all doubt.

#3. There is nothing "wrong" with being wrong. Learning from a mistake can be more valuable than not making one in the first place.

 

Follow these simple rules in life, and I promise you, things magically get easier. " - MageTank 31-10-2016

 

 

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4 hours ago, Mrhappyjolly said:

can you show me a screenshot of the error message please.

 

 

Drive 0 not found :  Serial ATA, SATA-0

Alert! Failed to detect one or more drives during POST.

Strike the F1 key to continue, F2 to run the setup utility

Press F5 to run onboard diagnostics

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6 hours ago, Mrhappyjolly said:

can you show me a screenshot of the error message please.

 

update: im stupid... i didnt know what "bootable drive" meant. im putting ubuntu onto a bootable usb drive now. once i get that working, i should be able to get the computer to boot properly.

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5 minutes ago, Volana said:

 

update: im stupid... i didnt know what "bootable drive" meant. im putting ubuntu onto a bootable usb drive now. once i get that working, i should be able to get the computer to boot properly.

now it says "An operating system wasn't found. Try disconnecting any drices that don't contain an operating system. Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart

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you need to have all disks disconnected with only the usb boot drive you created for ubuntu connected. so no hard drives.

 

some older machines will only boot from one usb port on the motherboard, try them all

 

you should also reset the bios

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