Does anyone know how to fix....

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1

1790 - Disk Controller Failure

got a super old computer that a person on campus asked us to fix… its incredibly old… its so old, the hard drive/floppy/cdrom plug into a daughterboard that plugs into the motherboard… pretty fun looking… also, the BIOS can’t be accessed w/o a floppy disk… someone said something about them being located on the hard drive…
problem is, in the BIOS, it recognizes the hard drive there, but when it goes to boot, it doenst find it…
i used all the utilities available from Compaq… they are the only reason i got to the BIOS in the first place (they had to be reinstalled)… weird freakin thing… ready to just throw it out and tell them its useless…
any last ideas?

2

the lady told me she believes it is 11 years old :eek2:

3

Throw it away, get new computer.

4

thats’ my instant solution when i saw what she wanted me to fix… but, some ppl try to save money even MORE than me.

5

Tell her your fee for fixing it… (outrageous) and then tell her what a new comp. would cost. :smiley:

6

get her a celeron, I hear they kick ass and are better than p4’s. :D:D:D

just kidding.

it looks like either the disk went bad or the controller went bad, wither way, it would cost more to fix than the pc is worth. buy a new one

7

What good is an 11 year old computer anyways?! It can’t do anything I’d imagine!!

8

New computer cost = $???

your repair cost should be = New computer cost + $1

tell her to save some money

9

problem is… she’s a really nice lady, so i couldnt charge her much at all…
and i’m working for the university, so its hard to charge her for doing what i’m supposed to be doing (even tho it is sorta on the side since its her personal computer)

10

its definitely rough… pentium 100 MHz … like 48 megs ram… it does have one upside… 13 GB hard drive… dont know where that came from :dunno:
but i think its trash too… just tryin to do the best i can to save it for her

11

I stay away from that shit. tell het to take it somewhere else to get fixed, it will blow up in your face if something goes wrong. keep work and side jobs separate

12

obviously, if it’s her personal PC that she hasn’t used in ____ amount time, she doesn’t need it that badly! Besides 13 GB isn’t that much. New comps come with 30GB at LEAST.

13

new pc’s come with whatever you order.

our work pc’s come with 20gb hard drives.

14

I haven’t seen a dell under 30 GB in a year. :dunno:

The computer I had growing up had 1.6 GB. :rofl:

15

well its not exactly a side job for just me… she just brought it into work one day…
but… i already told her we may not be able to do anythign with it, and she didnt seem to midn to much… she was just wating to get on the internet and send emails to ppl

i told her to either go to dell, or i will be gettin a p3 1 GHz from my brother soon. just needs the O/S and everything… but she doesnt seem like she really wants to spend any money… i’m willing to part w/ it for a good price
anybody want?

16

bootable bios diskette… secondary diskette for harddrive controller / drive drivers, whether product based, or old school universals.

flash bios with updated version, install harddrive manually or use driver disk

17

i think thats’ what i said i had (not sure)… to get into the bios and install them i had to use a bootable disk
when i originally got the computer, it seemed like it had the bios on the hard drive?? i dunno… i dont think its worth the time or effort…
she tells me now that she has a laptop that can’t recognize the modem or something… havent looked at it… hopefully it’ll be a lil easier

18

it’s like the old cisco pix… you need to boot the bios off a disk… then resetup your drive.

19

thats what i tried… i think… but no go…
and i still get that drive controller failure…
so i give up i think… dont imagine its worth the time

20

oh it’s not worth the time… that’s for sure.