Computer no longer boots after DSL attempt

Forum: Other Help Topics
Topic: Computer no longer boots after DSL attempt
started by: InStim

Posted by InStim on July 13 2006,14:47

I tried to boot a burned copy of the dsl-3.0.1.iso and now the computer will no longer boot at all.

It was a working system with Windows XP on it. The DSL CD appeared to be booting properly. Last thing I saw on screen was something about devices with a growing green progress bar with a white rotating character. Then the screen went blank, the drives spun down and the computer simply sat idle. After a few minutes I turned the computer off and tried booting again. Now the computer will not boot at all. It seems almost as if the BIOS is gone.

The computer powers up but the monitor doesn't come out of standby. The hard drive, CD and floppy poll but then spin down. So I can not boot from any source at all to even try and recover the system.

This was a Dell OptiPlex GX260. Any help would be much appreciated!

Posted by InStim on July 13 2006,15:21

After rooting around at Dell they recommended a RTCRST jumper reset. Didn't seem to work so I ended up pulling the motherboard battery for a few and that took.

What might DSL have been doing to cause this issue?

Posted by ^thehatsrule^ on July 13 2006,23:47

Probably that hardware was just too old.

Posted by brianw on July 14 2006,03:38

If you want to try booting again try with

dsl 2 nohwsetup base lowmem (even if you have the ram use this to start with)

at the start use F2 and F3 and put in as many no options as you can (noagp, nodma, nofirewire, noapci, noapm, etc...) and you can work backwards to see where the problem starts.

Would there be a bios virus trigger by polling (just a shot in the dark)? The autoconfigure fails on our Panasonic Toughbook CF-25 PI 133 24M ram and the message I get is to check the bios. Would Dell have something proprietary going on to cause this?