Forum Home
Press F1
Thread ID: 7642	2001-02-06 09:34:00	Compaq deskpro 2000 problems	Guest (0)	Press F1

Post ID	Timestamp	Content	User
8392	2001-02-06 09:34:00	Hi, Can anyone please help. I have just bought a deskpro 2000 / 5116 for the kids to play around on. Someone has previously reformatted the hard drive and re-installed windows 95 and from what I can gather there are a lot of settings for the machine kept in a portion of the hddrive and they have now gone. I cant get into the bios or setup or anything else I need My floppy doesn't work properly, sound & video & graphics also have problems. I downloaded Compaqs diagnostic program and ran it which told me what I already knew but I can,t find any solutions. Does this model have or need a restore disk to regain the settings and If so where would I get one Any help would be most appreciated Billy	Guest (0)
8393	2001-02-07 05:46:00	To set the records straight you can fdisk/format any pc hard drive..its not 'Compaq' only etc.. the only reason to use a restore cd is if you want all the software including the diagnostic utilities located in a separate partition. The best bet for you is to contact compaq.co.nz and ask them what the specs and drivers you need for your system. (They will more than likely charge for a restore-cd)...	Guest (0)
8394	2001-02-07 06:20:00	Hello Mark Of course you are right in saying that you can F/disk/Format any PC hard drive, the problem with some Compaqs that I have seen is,the normal means of formatting has been disabled in the Compaq Bios and you can't enable it,therefore you have to use their restore Disk to Format or reload Windows, no good if you wish to upgrade your computer to a newer version of Windows , Yes Compaq will quite happily sell you a new version of the recovery Disk, for about twice the price of what it would cost if you just upgraded yourself. The Disk Wizard work around, I posted gets passed this the same way as it gets around wrong DOS versions when Formatting. If you want proof of this try formatting a Compaq by normal means and see how you get on. Regards Alan	Guest (0)
8395	2001-02-07 12:55:00	Thanks guys for your fast and informative help. I did as you suggested Alan and downloaded the hddrive utilities from 'Western Digital' and tried to run them, well what a mess. About a million errors, such as wrong DOS version, cannot load DOS, cannot read 'A' wouldn't let me delete the 8mb partition the compaq stuff was on, Wouldn't read a W98 boot disk (nor a '95 or ME one for that matter)By this time I had managed to delete my main partition but couldn't format it.By about 4:am this morning I was about to smash the thing into oblivion. Got some sleep and stewed about it all day at work. (www.kenwills.co.nz) if any of your wives are interested. Came home tonight and set in for round two. Most of my problems seemed to be coming from Floppy errors so I hooked up a spare panasonic one I had lying around and 'hey presto' I was in business. Ran the 'W Digital' utilities Fdisk, format etc.and loaded on W98. Brilliant!! Hooked up the old compaq floppy and still couldn't make a boot disk and it still would'nt read a boot disk I had made on my other comp. Hooked up the panasonic and it worked fine. I could send office files and pictures to the compaq floppy and I could format the floppy so it was working ok, so it must be tied into the system somehow and won't let you carry out any system changes that don't require you to spend any money with compaq. End result is that I did some modification inside and 'remodeled' the exterior facade and a panasonic floppy now resides in the comp and it works just fine. There is still one problem, when booting up I still can't access the BIOS there are no options on screen when booting and everything I have tried to date has been unsuccessful, Any Ideas? I was also able to finally get some sound out of it too which is great. Thanks again for your help. Cheers Billy C	Guest (0)
8396	2001-02-08 10:16:00	often these machines have had boot from floppy turned off in the bios but why your panasonic works ???? may the compaq floppy is failing	Guest (0)
1