I have an E-Machine that finally went *boom*.

We bought this a long time ago, brand new. $300. We used it without problems for 4 years. Then I got Viruses / spyware, etc. Ultimately the Blue Screen Of Death.

I took it to a shop and for $100, they got it running, cleaned and I was back online. I got about another years use out of it and then the BSOD again. I think I let the antivirus expire on it.

I attempted to boot it up a couple of times, but it goes through it's boot up and instead of loading Windows, I get the BSOD.

I was thinking about trying to "fix" this one, just for the experience and to have another system running in the house, just for quick net surfs and google look ups etc.

Anyone feel like it's worth the time for me to do this?

Am I thinking right, that if I can get it booted, I would immediately uninstall all the antivirus, etc and immediately go down load AVG, SpyBot and CCleaner. Those are the ones I'd like to use.

I don't have the OS disc that came with it, so is this going to be hard to do?

Thoughts, concnern and advice appreciated and welcome.

Thanks,

Well tried to boot this again today...

no blue screen, it just stops on teh Windows XP boot screen and won't move.


I tried to start it in safe mode... went to last known good config...

got this message

windows can't boot.... missing

Windows Root> / system32\hal.dll.


any ideas ?

The hal.dll is part of the boot.ini file. If it was somehow deleted, whether by virus or error, then you need to run the repair option from the OS disk. Even if you dont have the original disk, you can run the repair option from any compatible disk, such as the one that you got with the other computer. It should be able to repair the missing files.

If you have gotten 5 good (or mostly good) years out of a $300, plus $100 repair cost, E-Machine, then you have really accomplished something. IMO, an E-Machine is like that little spare tire in the trunk, good for 50 miles at 55 mph, or a good, inexpensive solution to a technology free household.

If you do decide and are successful at repairing the machine, I would take care of the viral and spy issues, priority 1. Then just use it, as you say, for web surfing on known safe sites.

Luck to you on this.

[edit on 21-8-2008 by wheresthetruth]

i have an emachine, its the only computer i have ever had.

i tried to format it awhile back and found out the disk it comes with is worthless. it wont do anything, and then after that the dvd drive went down, i now officially hate emachine.

sorry cant help you, i cant even help myself on this piece of crap.

Most likely, you simply need to do a "chkdsk /p" scan. It will check for and attempt to locate and repair bad sectors/corrupt data on the hard drive. Though, without the XP disc and being unable to boot into safe mode, you might be S.O.L.

IF you can boot to safe mode...

Start --> Run--> type "cmd" --> type "chkdsk /p" --> hit enter --> type "y" --> hit enter.
Restart.

It should reboot and go through all 5 scans. If all goes well it'll come up to a desktop/login upon completion. Otherwise...


[edit: to add]

E-machines are known for power supply and or motherboard issues which typically render them paperweights. The cheap power supplies will go belly up and often take the board right along with them.

$.02

[edit on 22-8-2008 by 12m8keall2c]

Thanks...

I'll try that when I get home today.

Again, as old as this is and as little as I paid for it, we got our moneys worth out of it.

I was just trying this for something to do.


Another project I'm tackling tonight is cleaning my Dell XPS system. Meaning the fan and case... it's pretty dusty.

Well, I've cleaned the XPS... it was dirty... seems to be running nicely.

On the EMachine... I cant get it to boot in safe mode. I gotta have an XP disc. I have 2 but can't find them.

I wonder if creating a boot disk off of this laptop would work?

Hmmm I might try that.

Wish me luck.

[edit on 8/26/08 by makeitso]

My suggestion would be to throw it away because their hardware is not compatable with modern day harware the you can always upgrade when you build your own.

Does it not have a recovery partition you can access (sometimes with a key combination) at boot-time?

If it does, but you still cannot access it, provided you have some geek-tools knocking around, and depending on the exact structure of the recovery partition, you can still access it.

Download a tool called Gparted. It should come as an ISO image to be burned to a boot CD. You can use this to examine/repartition/twiddle with all kinds of storage devices. Upon loading Gparted, look for the partition flags for each partition. The "boot" flag will be set for your main C partition. Change that boot flag to the recovery partition and reboot. It *should* (again, depending upon the exact structure of the recovery partition) then boot right into your recovery tools. If not, simply go back into Gparted and change the boot flag back, back to sqaure one.

If it does boot into recovery, great! Do the whole recovery thing. Once the recovery has finished (usually "x" amount of time where it'll format and copy a load of files over to your C drive), you may have to go back into Gparted and give the boot flag back to your C drive. Do that, reboot again and all should be well.

I hope I've explained this clearly enough! It's 8am here and I've not had my first cuppa yet.

Ummm yeah, I'm lost with what you said there, but thanks for trying.

I have someone bringing me an XP disc tomorrow. woo hoo, this weekend, I'll tackle this again.

Alright computer wiz's, I need help again.

I have an XP disc.

It's Tiny Windows XP - Platinum Edition. It is a copy not an original disc.


I fired up the PC last night, put the disc in, F12, option 1.

It started loading. I got a couple of different screens saying everything was going ok, then the PC started rebooting itself again.

It went back to the safe mode screen ( options to choose how to boot), however if I choose any of them, it still doesn't boot. It starts to, goes to Windows log in screen and then back to the "safe mode" screen.

I took the disc out, turned off the PC and started over, this time I got further than before, got through about 3 different "loading" screens and then

Fatal Error : Preventing Start Up. The Parameter Is Incorrect.

Error : Installation Failed: D:\XP01\1386\ASMS


Any Ideas ?

My idea would be to burn the ISO to DVD instead of CD.

FWIW - I've had the emachine up and running for a while now.

Loaded XP - Dl'd the drivers I need, even upgraded to 1gb memory.

Running fine.

This is my experimental machine, I'm going to see how long I can keep it running.