h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Mission Accomplished. On the last day of pre-Christmas delivery dates too!
She should've got it by 12 this morning.

*steals post 42*

That was 12am Christmas Eve as I recall... Is there no Special Delivery post on Christmas /Eve/?

12pm. Of course.

Ah-ha! Just checked the terms on the Special Delivery receipt and it turns out I can track the item. Their website tells me these details for the package:

A delivery was attempted for your item with reference ... in SOUTH BRISTOL before 10:56 on 24/12/03 and we have advised the recipient that the item is now at their local Royal Mail enquiry office.

In other words, it seems they got no answer and they left a little card through the letterbox, and the hard drive package awaits Natali at the collection point place. Which is good, because it seems the Post Office staff person has applied £0 available compensation on the receipt.

So Saturnine is called Natalie? And how come she hasn't gotten her computer so long after xmas?

Oops.

Have I spoken the name of the wise one?

It's funny to watch how people automatically correct her name though. She spells it without the 'e' on the end. Therefore, that was not a typo.

Reason why she hasn't got the package months before Christmas: My fault

Reason why she hasn't got it by Christmas Day: Royal Mail's fault for not trying hard enough to get an answer at the door. She said it'd be January before she'll be back online a while back, so maybe she has plans to take care of before even installing the new PC stuff.

Well, that explains it, then. I had thought that when she posted a couple of weeks ago, that meant she was back online for good. But I suppose she just jumped on someone's computer then, and is still yet to fix her own comp.

*goes back to what he was doing*

Did anybody try a boot of CD? ie change the boot order. Or consider setting the HD then CD as absent. Most BIOS have halt on error control too. ie All but...|

FDD thing put the plug on right ...if the drive LED is alway on its upside down.

CD drives die too.

What does auto detect from the BIOS report for these drives?

Quite some time ago I posted the only info I had then, I don't know any more than that. Try the backlog or ask aka, he might know more.

I mentioned the floppy part, after reading the backlog... It had some logic to it. ie by switching thing off in turn, to see what no longer raised an error.

But, there did seem a leap from DMI error to needing a new HD without showing the route to this conclusion.

The first thing I would have doe is on the BIOS set-up screens, it as a rue is the 'last page' make sure Plug & Play BIOS was enabled, then select the option for 'Allow DMI update' to allow he extended BIOS information to be updated.

If this failed, next I would try to use the 'auto-detect' feature to search for the HD, see if that is alive. The CD (or DVD) ROM is usually an a device that is 'found' at boot-up and the BIOS will report it as say a Pioneer DVD-105 etc. having polled that information from the drive itself.

Another thing to try is, remove power, remove the battery, so there is no power to the CMOS RAM. Then move the CMOS jumper link to the reset postition, and leave for and then back, replace the power, not the battery, see if the DMI info can be re-set. Check the battery for voltage. If it's OK, power off, then put the battery back. If during this the DMI still did not update, then it may be worth 'link to reset' for an hour or so. Never 'reset' with the battery in or power on.

I'd want to see what the hardware wants to tell me before and formatting of drives.

The HD should be on the primary controller, and the CD-ROM on the secondary. The fact you have a DMI would indicat a fairly new board, and thenlikley to have more than one IDE channel. (The 'blue / non black' connector is primary as a rule.)

Well, the hardware side of things isn't really my strongest area of expertise, so I just thought it best to go with a definite fix.

I'm starting to get a bit worried though - Royal Mail are saying they posted one of those cards through the door saying where you can pick up the package since they couldn't get an answer at the door; And it's still apparently unclaimed - How long do they keep the packages before 'making room' for others? Maybe I should <./>Askh2g2</.>...

Ah-ha!
"Your item with reference .... has been delivered. If you require further information please use the contact us button below."

Looks like it's been collected! I included my phone number with the package so if she gets a bit confused I can talk her through the installation and she should be back online in a day or so!

...and there was much rejoicing...

Indeed.. Perhaps she's a bit too busy to be fiddling with hard drives today though. One would certainly think so.

aka, yep swapping for a 'know to be working' device is a good idea.

Plus you have the difficulty of working remote. If only we all had picture messaging phones and they were cheap to use.

Remote Assistance will be a godsend, for the post-boot problems.

Ok. I am back online. Explanations later.

Celebrations now.

So will you be at the meet?