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Thread ID: 65519 2006-01-21 01:53:00 All Greek to Me! meg_h_nz (6960) Press F1
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423286 2006-01-21 01:53:00 My kids have an old Gateway Celeron 433 , 7GB HD, DVD Drive, CD Writer, 320 MB RAM running Win ME.
We were given an AMD (not sure which type of processor) with a 40GB HD, 256 MB RAM and running Windows 2000 and full of viruses and spy ware. I thought I might take the best of both machines and make one better one for the kids.
After trying to fix it I gave up and re-formatted the hard drive of the AMD (Installed Win ME) and it was going fine except that it was only ready the HD as 2GB (???) I knew it wasn’t partitioned and the whole drive, all 40GB had been wiped so couldn’t figure out the problem.
Could it be that the HD is damaged?
Any way that is not the main problem….
The main problem is that when I started up the newly re-formatted AMD the BIOS language had changed. In fact I would be surprised if it was a language at all. It looks like Russian or Greek from my nearest guess.
How can I get it back the way it was? In English?
I can enter the BIOS but can’t make head nor tail of it to change any settings?
Are the BIOS and the HD problems connected? Or have I got two big issues?

Any help much appreciated

Meg
meg_h_nz (6960)
423287 2006-01-21 02:09:00 Did you get any papers or books to go with this new AMD computer? stu161204 (123)
423288 2006-01-21 02:27:00 The disk is almost certainly OK. :D The 2GB is a result of the way you reformatted it. I would have thought that a Windows ME installer could have handled a biggish drive. Someone will know. ;) It's a pity you didn't just delete the W2k files, except for the "I386" directory, which might have let you reinstall w2k. ;:(

The BIOS one is a bit odd ... is this when you use DEL or an Fx key to get into the BIOS setup?
Graham L (2)
423289 2006-01-21 02:31:00 No, no books or papers. It was a third hand one when I got it. meg_h_nz (6960)
423290 2006-01-21 02:42:00 Hi, I couldnt reinstall w2k as I didnt have the disks. The computer was third hand and the last owner got no disks when they bought it.
Thanks for the info on the drive. I do seem to remember someone mentioning that before. I will hunt out some old posts and see what I can do.

As for the BIOS problem.....
After the first flash screen, the next one that used to have the hard drive, RAM, etc specs is in the same "greek" .
If I start up and press Delete I get a blue screen divided into 2 sides (with 7 options in yellow "Greek" on each side, that can be highlighted by pressing the arrow keys) with 2 lower screen width rectangles, the lower of the two changes as I cycle through the options using the arrow keys.....

Does any of that make sense?
meg_h_nz (6960)
423291 2006-01-21 04:05:00 Its faulty. Forget it. pctek (84)
423292 2006-01-21 13:08:00 If I recall correctly FAT16 has a 2GB limit. You probably never asked for the partitioning to be a Large disk.

Another thing to check out is if there's a shunt (wrongfully called a jumper) on the drive that limits it to 2GB.

Check BIOS settings and make sure LBA is selected as the drive type, if it's not available you might need a BIOS update, also could try Large as the setting, but better to use LBA.

Also for the BIOS, can you describe it, or is anything English like maybe the BIOS name, sounds familiar by what you described but can't be too sure, some BIOS allowed you to select your language, and with more information, maybe I or someone else can guide you to switch it to English.

Cheers,


KK
Kame (312)
423293 2006-01-21 20:05:00 Hi KK
Thanks for the info on the HD. Is there any way I can fix that?

I cant check any BIOS settings. Nothing is in english. It is all unreadable but as I decribed above (post #5) it is there. I dont want to play around with it too much as I could do more damage.
Many thanks
Meg
meg_h_nz (6960)
423294 2006-01-21 20:11:00 I could post a picture of what the screen looks like.....
If anyone thinks they can help let me know and I will get one sorted.
Thanks
meg_h_nz (6960)
423295 2006-01-21 20:19:00 First thing I'd do is try reformatting and reinstalling again. Greg (193)
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