Trying to add 1 GB of ram: now big trouble...

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fmonte

Member
I thought this was going to be so simple. Best Buy salesman said pc5300 module would work even though my existing ram is pc4200. I called PNY technical support when it caused my computer to have issues and he said it would be best to match the pc4200 and he added, it sounds like the problems you are having is because your cmos battery is going. He gave me instructions and I just finished installing a new cmos battery and the pc4200, 1 gb of ram. When I went to boot up I got a dos screen asking to enter setup or continue. So I hit continue. Then it said i needed to insert my system cd to continue the boot, so I did and now I am a Welcome to Windows XP Setup screen and it is giving me 3 choices. I have not continued because I am in way over my head at this point and I am afraid if I continue I may lose the data on my hard drive (I don't have the files backed up). The 3 choices are:

1. To set up Windows XP now, press enter.
2. To repair a Windows XP installation sing Recovery Console, press R.
3. To quit Setup without installing Windows XP, press F3

Please help and keep in mind I am a real novice and I can't lose the data on the hard drive. Thank you.

Frank
 
2048Megabytes

2048Megabytes

Active Member
If the data on this hard drive is really valuable do not do anything to the hard drive yet. If you have a friend who knows computers call them and ask for help. If you don't know anyone who has computer knowledge, call a local computer store and ask them for a price quote on how much they would charge you to copy all the data off a hard drive for you.

Learn your lesson from this incident. Buy an external hard drive or a 16 gigabyte USB flash drive and copy your valued data. I make backups every few weeks of my valuable information so I won't lose it.
 
johnb35

johnb35

Administrator
Staff member
Most likely when you replaced the cmos battery you lost the settings and now it doesn't recognize the hard drive possibly. Basically what you need now is to remember what settings you had originally. If someone else set this up for you then call them and have them look at it. If this is a newer system, its probably your sata controller setting.
 
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fmonte

Member
Thank you. I or no one else set up this computer. I bought it from acer and turned it on and it has always worked fine since I bought it 3 years ago.
 
johnb35

johnb35

Administrator
Staff member
Look in the bios to see if there is a sata controller setting and see what its set at. Usually laptop manufacturers set it to AHCI. If its already set at ahci then change it to IDE/compatibility and see if it will boot up, make sure you save changes before exiting the bios.
 
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fmonte

Member
Thanks John, so if I understand correctly, at the screen I am at now, I hit F3 and shut down my computer. Then restart and this time when I get that dos screen instead of hitting continue I F2 to go into setup and that is where I will find the bios settings. Any detail you can give will be appreciated as this is very new to me.
 
johnb35

johnb35

Administrator
Staff member
Look under integrated peripherals/devices. Not all bios menus are the same so you'll just have to look around.
 
F

fmonte

Member
Okay so i shut down and rebooted and got into a setup menu and one of the choices was integrated peripheral/devices, so I went into that and there is a line Serial-ATA Controller and it is set to " all enabled". I paged thru the other setting and it could be changed to "Sata 1" or "disabled". I also went into the cmos features and corrected the time and date. Then I tried to reboot and I get the disk failure, insert cd error message. If you want me to do something, please give step by step instructions because this is way over my head.
 
F

fmonte

Member
One thing I noticed in the CMOS features it lists:

IDE Channel 0 Master (hl-dt-st-dvd-rw-gsa)
IDE Channel 0 Slave (Maxtor)- this is my extra drive for files, it doesn't have windows on it.
IDE Channel 2 Master (ST3320820AS)- this is the seagate drive that came with the computer. this is the drive that has windows.
IDE Channel 3 Master (none)

If i am getting a boot disk error, could it be that the seagate drive is in the wrong place? Thank you.
 
F

fmonte

Member
Also I just went into the hard disk priority list and it shows:

1. Ch0 S: Maxtor
2. Ch2 M: Seagate
3. Bootable add in cards.
 
johnb35

johnb35

Administrator
Staff member
johnb35 said:
Does the bios detect the hard drive?
Click to expand...

Your post answered that question..... Your hard drive is sata so there is no master/slave settings like there is with IDE drives. However, go into the bios and check the boot priority and make sure the hard drive is enabled and listed as first boot device. It can also be listed as second boot device with the cdrom listed as first.

I know this is probably frustrating for you without knowing much about computers. I'm trying to help as much as I can.
 
F

fmonte

Member
In advance bios features I found:

First boot device: removable
Second boot device: hard disk
third boot device: cd rom

Does this answer your question. Please advise.
 
F

fmonte

Member
I hit F10 to save the change and it automatically rebooted me and I am now in my desktop so I thing that was the answer.
 
F

fmonte

Member
John, the computer is acting up again. This is what happened last night when I called the PNY tech department and the guy told me it was a memory compatability issue and a cmos battery issue. I don't think he was right because now I have a brand new battery and the matching ram and I am still having trouble. By trouble I mean, when I go into the control panel and click on system to see if my ram got picked up, the computer does not respond to my click on systems. When I click on it nothing happens.
 
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