Re: here's a conundrum
 

Mornin Chaps,

Yes i have a Thompson Speedtouch BB modem and to be honest I have had nothing but problems with it since I got it. I have been considering moving to Pipex, but since I am going to be moving house at sometime in the next few month I thought that I might as well keep BT until then and make a clean break when I actually move.

Coming back to the problem of the old PC, I can access the CMOS but not the BIOS.

In CMOS I can disable "boot up" from the Hard Drive, will this do it?

Re: here's a conundrum
 

Well, that was fun - while it lasted. I went into CMOS disabled boot up from the C: drive, put the CD in the tray and off we went....or rather we didn't. The blessed thing booted from the C: drive regardless! Stumped!

Re: here's a conundrum
 

There is normally a first boot device, second boot device third boot device. Make sure that the first one is set to CDROM. Disable the others. Also when it starts up on teh POST screen(The first one where it tells you how much memory etc) look for something that says F12 Boot Menu or the like.

When you rebooted, did it try teh CD first and then drop back to the HD or did it not even attempt the CD?

Ian

Re: here's a conundrum
 

I have two options on the start up screen - ESC (Post) and F2 (CMOS) Pressing ESC merely pauses boot up.

I tried disabling all boot devices and reasigning the first one to CD-ROM. It had a quick look at the CD, a couple of flickers on the indicator light, and then loaded win98, presumably from the c:drive. ?

Re: here's a conundrum
 

One other thing which, thinking about it, might have some bearing on the problem. When the worm struck I tried starting up my virus program AVG. But this made the problem worse and seemed to cause everything to crash.

Now, when everything is booting, AVG scans, possibly the satrt menu, and there is nothing I can do to prevent it doing this. If avg is the infected program could it be this that is causing explorer to report a page fault. And if, through DOS, I deleted avg*.* would that perhaps make a difference?

Re: here's a conundrum
 

You said it tried the CD? When you burned the disc, how did you do it? Did you burn the iso onto the disc or use Burn Image from Nero and point it at the iso?

i.e. If you put th disc in your other computer do you see i file on the disc or lots?

Ian

Re: here's a conundrum
 

I didn't use nero because I don't have it I saved the file to a folder on my hard drive and used the computers cd burner. There is one file on the CD

Re: here's a conundrum
 

That is your problem. An ISO is a disc image What CD burning software do you have? Adaptec? What you have done is burn the inage file to CD not the image. If you look for a Burn disk image or Burn ISO type option then it will ask you which ISO. Point it at the .iso file.

You should end up witha disk with lots of files on it.

NEARLY THERE!!!!!

:)

Re: here's a conundrum
 

I would have lost my rag well before this and kicked the screaming computer out of the window......then claimed on the contents insurance!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Re: here's a conundrum
 

Sorry......I really shouldn't interrupt such a serious post with my frivolity...... but you two guys have my undying admiration (I know that won't mend the PC)!

Re: here's a conundrum
 

did you get this problem sorted..?

if not i have a few ieas i use on peoples systems but cant type too well right now coz my babys bashing the bloody keyboard and i cant leave him alone or he cries lol

Re: here's a conundrum
 

Perhaps you should let him register - he may make more sense than a few people on here (probably myself included)!!!

Re: here's a conundrum
 

Ok, The story so far. I managed to find a copy of Nero V4. I spent ages downloading bits and pieces from the nero website to get the wretched thing to work properly but it will not, under any circumstances, recognise my CD Writer and insists on writing the image as a virtual recording - image.rng- one file, not many.

I had another look at the old computer and changed the cmos settings to boot from the first drive which I renamed as CDROM and disabled the remaining two drives. Guess what? It loaded windows anyway and didn't even bother with the Cd Drive other than to check that it was there!

It rather looks as though there is a lot more wrong with this machine than I first thought, perhaps the only solution is a lump hammer!

Re: here's a conundrum
 

The latest.... After a lot of searching I found the right bit on the nero website and downloaded a demo copy of the very latest offerings. Success, of a sort, Nero will now write to my cd writer - and what it writes is an exact copy of the original, Knoppix_v3.7-2004-12-08EN.iso, one file, not many. There is no opportunity to distinguish between "burn" and "burn disk image".

Re: here's a conundrum
 

A-B, PM me your address, I'll drop a copy off for you.

Ian