Salvaging an Old Computer

steviec · 10-08-2003 12:51am #1

My mate brought me a PC to refurbish the other day which he'd salvaged when it was being binned in his job. It's a Compaq 500Mhz Pentium 3 with a whopping 500Mb hard drive and 128Mb RAM, along with crappy Video, Sound and Network cards.
Now I've no experience with compaqs and the like cos I've always gone the build you own route(and I'm not hugely experienced there either really), so this is giving me trouble because it all seems too integrated. When I switch on the PC the company name comes up under the compaq logo straight away, it appears to be integrated into the BIOS and not on the hard drive. The setting options in the BIOS are basically zero, the only things I can really do there are set passwords and stuff.
So, I pass that and the machine starts booting up, goes initialising various things until it gets to '3Com Ethernet' when it freezes. It has a network card, I dunno if it's freezing because there's something wrong with the hardware or because it's looking for the network it's meant to be on and can't find it.
Anyway, thats what happens with the original hard drive which needless to say I want to replace anyway since it's so tiny. But when I put in my own hard drive and boot up I just get 'Can't find NTLDR. Press any key to reboot'
Can't seem to get past that one. Is it a lost cause? Seems like such a waste throwing out a PC perfectly capable of doing most tasks barring high end gaming. I've had a look at the motherboard, no brand name or anything, only jumper I found was to clear the CMOS, which I did but with no effect.
Any suggestions?

Creamy Goodness · 10-08-2003 12:58am

is there an o/s installed on your hard drive?

pc don't like that when o/s is installed on a hard drive then stuck into a different pc

steviec · 10-08-2003 1:35am

Yea there is.
See I've no CD-ROM drive so I thought I'd get away with putting in a hard drive that already had windows on it. Guess I'll have to take the CD drive out of my own computer for the moment.

Dr Bolouswki · 10-08-2003 1:59am

d'yu try going into save mode with the original hard drive and removing the dodgy network card from device manager? If thats all thats stalling the boot to windows it might work...

if the nic isn't integrated remove it and try that....

Virus_Inc · 10-08-2003 11:32am

Compaqs are bad like that, they do everything their own way - including bootsector & hdd access. Found that out the hard way at work one day when I nuked the partition an old compaq and then tried to reinstall it. No dice - had to ghost the drive from another compaq before the bugger would boot from it..

think the compaq bios key is F10 if I remember.

maxpower · 10-08-2003 8:33pm

if u have a regitered version windows xp on ur bigger hd then their's u'r prob i think(xp reg's the bois then boots from that or something like that)

or it is probable booting from a network... hence the really small hd.... so their prob aint an os on the hd.

steviec · 12-08-2003 12:07am

Yea once I installed a CD ROM into it and booted from that it said the windows installation was corrupt so I did a fresh install and it worked.
Can't activate XP though, it says I've already used the key too many times cos I have it installed on my own PC. It's illegal for me to use the same copy on two PCs is it? Even if they're both for private use and everything.
I can just install Win98 though, XP auto-detected all the hardware so I can go and search for 98 drivers for them.

Dr Bolouswki · 12-08-2003 1:16am

Xp needs 128mb just to function normally - I'd say 98 or preferably 2000 would be a better bet...

Not that I'm endorsing pirating or anything, but if you really wanted you could download XP Pro or Win 2k on Kazaa or wherever and save yourself your registration hassles....

If you wanted to break the law like. Which neither myself or Boards are suggesting. Like.

N'ym'sayin?

maxpower · 12-08-2003 8:10am

if you register win xp over the fone.... you can install it on any computer loads of times

ozpass · 13-08-2003 5:23pm

The Compaq BIOS is stored on a special partition on the hard drive. Destroy that partition and you lunch the BIOS. Download the relevant BIOS for the system in question from Compaq before you start FDISKing drives etc.

^whitey^ · 13-08-2003 5:32pm

Xp needs 128mb just to function normally - I'd say 98 or preferably 2000 would be a better bet...

Worked fine with 64mb for me so 128mb shouldn't have any probs

steviec · 14-08-2003 2:45am

The BIOS was still thee when I removed the hard drive completely so that wasn't a problem.
Anyways I've got it all running it's grand. The only version of Windows I have instead of XP is 95 which I'm a bit iffy about considering I'm adding it to a network that already has an XP and a 98 machine, but we'll see how it goes.

po0k · 14-08-2003 3:15am

Install a CDROM drive, set to boot from CD, format the hard drive, install windows, set to boot fom hard drive. Bob's you estranged monkey-raping granmother.

*to wipe BIOS settings examine motherboard for a jumper (2-3pins) near the battery and/or BIOS. These should let you reset the BIOS back to factory settings, and have no password on it.
Sorted.

yellum · 14-08-2003 8:55am

Moving to Technology Forum

BKtje · 14-08-2003 9:45am

Worked fine with 64mb for me so 128mb shouldn't have any prob

64mb is the minimal needed to run windows XP, they recommend 128mb or above or XP will be using almost all your RAM so you'll be experiencing some serious slow down and paging.

marrakesh · 14-08-2003 9:57am

Ill give you 90 euros for the system cash.

Salvaging an Old Computer

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