Blog - New computer and the won't-boot mystery
New computer and the won't-boot mystery
Did I forget to say that I got a new computer? A few months ago, it had already been a while since I was tired of my previous computer being quite slow, and I had related problems like audio recording not functioning properly. So I got a new one with an Intel Quad Core Q9550 2.83GHz CPU, 3GB of RAM, a GeForce 9500GT video card, and a new 1TB hard disk for dessert (as my data drive). :) I bought this for less than ¥80000 at Dospara. For the monitor I still use my Fukasawa Naoto-designed award-winning Mitsubishi that I love.
This new computer has been just super fast since! Boots up in some 20 seconds, and applications fire-up almost with no wait at all.
Anyway, since I got this computer, I've had a strange problem a few times. When booting up it would get to the point where Windows usually starts up (after BIOS doing its thing), but the screen would remain black with the DOS cursor would go down a few lines and blink, and nothing would happen.
It was first blamed on my boot hard disk that might not be spinning properly, and after the problem occurring intermittently, every time opening the computer to check the connectors, it got a bit scary as I didn't want to get to the point where it wouldn't boot anymore at all, so I upgraded my boot hard disk to a new one.
Well this morning it happened again, first time with the new hard drive, and then I found the culprit. Guess what, it was because a memory card was placed in my USB card reader, and for some reason the BIOS was trying to maybe boot from it, without asking anything...? Grrrr.
So that's right, when I opened the computer to look into the problem before, I was also removing the card reader, that's why it always came back to normal after. Ha!
Anyway, mystery solved. And I guess my old hard disk (160GB) can be used again safely too.
Posted on October 12, 2009 at 10:39 | Tweet
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