Ok, I'll start at the beginning. I have and old home-brew computer, with an Intel Pentium 4 Processor(I believe) 1GB of RAM, a 350 Watt power supply. The mobo is a Sillicon Integrated Systems one, though that's the best I know. I wasn't the original build o the computer, so I can't be completely sure. If it helps, it has a DDR RAM slot and a DDR2 RAM slot. 3 PCI slots, and the PCI-X for audio and video(I Believe) , 2 IDE cable slots, and one for a floppy drive. There are the mouse and keyboard ports, a SCSI port, 2 USB ports, an ethernet port, a video port, 3 audio channels, and two other ports whose names I dont know. I believe one might be for sound, and one is the reverse of the video port. I have rebuilt the computer several times, mostly for experience, but once to increase the RAM.

About a month ago, I was having problems with auto-mounting my flash drives. I had attributed this to software, and decided whatever. My mouse cursor started acting funny around the same time as well, disappearing when I mouse over something and the description of what it did came up. Again, I thought software. A few days ago, I opened my computer and attached a second harddrive, hoping to transfer a bunch of data and use another computer as well, but still keep all my data. I tried everything but the computer couldn't find it. I shut off the computer, removed the hard drive and attempted to reboot the computer. The computer turned on, got to the "verifying DMI pool data..." then it said that the disk has an error, insert system disk and press enter. I did, and it just kept repeating the message every time I hit the return key. I shut it down, removed my HDD, and tried several old ones, but none worked. I have an older computer without enough RAM to support my FEDORA 15 OS, tried the HDD in that an got the GRUB screen, as I should have. I messed around in the BIOS a bit, hooked my HDD back up, an it still didn't work. I went back to BIOS, and turned on TURBO speed, instead of NORMAL. Now I can't even get the loading screen and/or BIOS. My monitor says No Input Signal, and the num lock on my keyboard doesn't turn on. My CPU fan works though, so does the power pack fan, and my RAM and all power connections are plugged in correctly. I have no clue what to do ;$
Any insights would help.


oh, and btw, the RAM controller For the DDR2 RAM broke off, so I haven't been using DDR2 RAM or that slot. This happened long before my problem though.

Try booting to a Live CD of something (Knoppix is good for this).

See whether you can mount your HDD under the Live CD.

Report the results back here.

My gut reaction is that the mobo may be giving up the ghost.

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try disconnecting everything & reconnecting, including cmos battery & ram

and you used ESD precautions each time you changed hardware bits?
If not, you may have zapped something which means you'll continue to get weird things happening due to damaged chips.
This sounds particularly worrying. I'm amazed it works at all!

Play Bonny!

I'm betting one of the RAM sticks is bad. Try to find out which one.

I'd boot a Puppy Live CD or DVD on that one. Since no hardrive. I'd put the pupsave file (when asked on Shutdown) on external USB, or if DVD. Put pupsave on DVD disk.

+1 on checking ram. I'd check VGA connection and try another CRT on it also. I'd also set bios back to defaults also because of this statement.



A lot of your headaches would have been avoided by just booting a live cd session and using a usb hard drive adapter to do the backups. But to each their own. Good luck with what ever you try though.

I'm only using one stick of RAM, in the slot where the controller is still intact. I took precautions not to damage anything. I cant load a live CD of anything, i tried, and now the video output is not outputting even the main mobo screen. I have taken everything out and put it back together twice in attempt to fix the problem, with no avail. I will remove the battery, and see if that helps. I will post back my results.

Buy a new RAM stick.

Ok, here's how it went. I removed the CMOS battery, resetting it's defaults. I switched on the computer, verified the CMOS setup, and all seemed to be going well. However, when the system booted, instead of my OS I got the GRUB screen, which I usually get on systems without enough RAM. The top line reads

GNU GRUB version 0.97 (639k lower / 1014720k upper memory)


How do I boot the kernel from GRUB? I tried "boot" but it says:
Error 8: Kernel must be loaded before booting

Well I'm out of my league here. Anyone with any clue what to do, I'll take whatever advice you can give ;$

This might help.

http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/man...gacy/grub.html

My initial feeling is stronger. I fear your computer is seriously ill and may require last rites.

Can anyone give examples of what to do to boot a system in GRUB??
the tutorials are still a bit beyond me.

Update:

I feel that the system may actually be fine, and that my hard drive got messed up. First of all, I have managed to boot a live CD of Fedora 15. It works fine. And GRUB is installed on a hard drive, not the system. My RAM is fine, as the live CD can use. Now it seems purely a software issue...