midi3d Posted April 5, 2008 Share Posted April 5, 2008 I'm fixing my friend's eMachines T3828 (Celeron D, 256MB, Western Digital 80GB HD, Generic Combo drive). I've gotten the important files off the HD, using the Win98 install disk to boot and moved them to a pen drive. However, I can't get the Win98 install to run. Install starts, but when I get to partitioning, the intaller keeps asking me to insert the install disk into drive D:. I've tried1-swapping the CD drive for my own2-copying the install files to a pen drive, booting with the CD, and running the install from the pen drive3-playing around with different IDE cable configurationsI've also tried installing several flavors of Ubuntu. They all give a write error when trying to copy files for setup.Does anyone know if there could be special hardware on eMachines that would prevent anything but the original recovery disks (lost) from installing an operating system? Thanks in advance for any suggestions. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
puntoMX Posted April 5, 2008 Share Posted April 5, 2008 Looks like a dead mobo or bad RAM to me, use memtest to see if it gives no errors on the RAM. Also look for bad capacitors around the CPU voltage regulators aria. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
midi3d Posted April 5, 2008 Author Share Posted April 5, 2008 Memtest gave no errors after 77 passes. How can I check the capacitors around the CPU? I have a multi-meter. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dandnsmith Posted April 5, 2008 Share Posted April 5, 2008 Don't know what the problem is, really, but would myself try putting in a 'new' HDD to see what happens then - you could then absolve the system on the existing HDD of having a software blockout.Apart from locking the dialup modem on some machines, I have never heard of such a block on emachines. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Th3_uN1Qu3 Posted April 5, 2008 Share Posted April 5, 2008 (edited) Check the hard drive with MHDD. Do a scan, and if it reports any sectors as uncorrectable (there will be a legend on the right side of the screen), your hard drive is busted. Edited April 5, 2008 by Th3_uN1Qu3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
puntoMX Posted April 5, 2008 Share Posted April 5, 2008 How can I check the capacitors around the CPU? I have a multi-meter.They are called "leaking caps" and look like this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
midi3d Posted April 6, 2008 Author Share Posted April 6, 2008 Thanks so much for all your advice! I ran MHDD, which gave no errors. It seems like a very useful piece of software, but I need to ++ my HD knowlege to be able to use all its features. I also put in my own extra WD I got a retail copy of XP pro from a friend, which, by golly, is installing like clockwork..........Spoke to soon. Crash/reboot just occurred while copying install files. No error message. This is getting uglier and uglier..........Second try is going better. I'll update you on the progress. It seems, though, that there _is_ some hardware problem which will need to be dealt with.@puntoMX: I just saw your post, so I'll look at the capcitors. Thanks for not telling me to google it. I owe you one.Drew Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Th3_uN1Qu3 Posted April 6, 2008 Share Posted April 6, 2008 (edited) If it's not the capacitors, it's probably a bad PSU (power supply unit). Power units from OEM computers are notorious to fail, since they are almost always the bare minimum to run the system so they can make it cheaper. Grab a spare power supply, plug it in, and see if the problem is still there.Also, have you checked that the CPU isn't getting too hot? It's a Cel, so it's unlikely, but not impossible. Edited April 6, 2008 by Th3_uN1Qu3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
midi3d Posted April 7, 2008 Author Share Posted April 7, 2008 Once again, thank you all for your advice!I've got XP installed and updated, drivers installed, and all of the files back on the computer. I downloaded the drivers from the eMachines web site. All but the ethernet driver, that is. For some reason, eMachines has chosen to not provide it over the web. Perhaps they assume that if you're connected to the internet, you already have it installed. Or perhaps there are different ethernet cards installed on different motherboards. <soapbox> Both of these are conjecture, but I can't say either are satisfactory. If a company is going to provide support to their customers, they should provide all the resources that make that support complete. Inadequate/generic documentation and missing drivers are not acceptable. </soapbox> So, I looked for the motherboard model number and went to the intel download site to get the ethernet driver for their d845gvsr board. That happened to be the board model in my friend's T3828, but they could be using other boards for different batches, right?I looked at the capacitors, and none of them seemed to be leaking or expanded. I downloaded HWMonitor from www.cpuid.com. All the voltages and temperatures seem to be in normal range (CPU @ 35 deg C, HD @ 38 deg C) except for the +12V post, which fluctuates from 11.68V-11.80V. Is this an acceptable way to see if the power supply is doing its job? And, is this an acceptable range for the +12V post?Drew Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tripredacus Posted April 7, 2008 Share Posted April 7, 2008 Don't rule out your CD drive also. Do you still need a LAN driver? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
puntoMX Posted April 7, 2008 Share Posted April 7, 2008 So, I looked for the motherboard model number and went to the intel download site to get the ethernet driver for their d845gvsr board. That happened to be the board model in my friend's T3828, but they could be using other boards for different batches, right? yes, that should work, but I still don’t get it why it gave read errors except for a faulty CD...Don't rule out your CD drive also. Do you still need a LAN driver?1-swapping the CD drive for my ownI think he did that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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