Oh noooooo business PC crash, Helf!

[Spike]

Just turned on my PC this morning and got the following message when it started to boot up;

FOR REALTEK PCI ETHERNET CONTROLLER
PXE-E61: MEDIA TEST FAILURE, CHECK CABLE

Tried restarting a few times and the same thing happened. I got the option to hit a key to "start flash BIOS", so I did that and it's still chunterring away half an hour later and nothing new seems to be happening. I've got recent back-ups of my main files but I run my business life on Outlook and all my Outlook files are on the injured PC, so I need to recover it ASAP. Anyone got any brilliant ideas, or a Sunday afternoon to spare?

[neo]

Spike,

Does the machine go to a Blue Screen, or fail to bootup?

I've found a couple of references based on 'chocolating' (do we still do that? ) "PXE-E61: MEDIA TEST FAILURE, CHECK CABLE" as stemming from either some kind of hard disk error or bios related problems.

The good news, is that you might be able to read the hard drive by connecting to a different machine, so you haven't necessarily lost your data.

In terms of fixing the current PC, can you access the BIOS, depending on the make of machine when it first switches on, you should get the option to enter the BIOS by hitting 'DELETE', 'F2' or something similar, should appear on the screen right at start up.

If you can get into the BIOS you can check for Bootable Devices or something similar, and look to see if it find you hard disk as an option for bootup?

As alternative thoughts do you have a Windows XP Disk, as you may be able to boot of that, and then use it to check if the disk is okay.

Are you on any form of IM, if so PM me, and i'll see if i can talk you through other stuff?

[Spike]

No, it doesn't boot up at all. I've tried doing the repair option with the Vista disk in the DVD drive but it hasn't helped. I'm on MSN messenger. Will send you my hotmail address.

[Spike]

Took it to Challenger and they discovered that the BIOS had decided to reconfigure itself. A few seconds of faster than lightning finger work by the techie had it going again. When I asked him what might have caused it he said it might be due to the memory hyperdrive offset spingle harbour causing a reverse influx condition in the lower cyber spiggot. I'm still none the wiser and thanks for Neo for spending an hour of his Sunday talking me through some diagnostics.

[Burbage]

There are some viruses which can reconfigure the bios. Make sure you do an update of your insecticide and a full scan.

[Spike]

There are some viruses which can reconfigure the bios. Make sure you do an update of your insecticide and a full scan.

Ok, will do. I'll have to take it back tomorrow because it doesn't recognise the feckin' DVD drive now!![smilie=23_3.gif]

[Morrolan]

...he said it might be due to the memory hyperdrive offset spingle harbour causing a reverse influx condition in the lower cyber spiggot.

[Spike]

Ok, now it really doesn't work at all and I'm fed up with lugging the damn thing backwards and forwards to Challenger's PC Clinic. Does anyone know of an on-site PC doctor that does emergency visits...before I take a sledgehammer to this fecking PC.

[BFG]

Courts used to. But I may be wrong. I often am...

[Jedi]

sounds like hard drive failure. rip out the drive, stick it in an external casing. plug it in to a laptop. run a scandisk on it.

[Pinklepurr]

Jedi, lovely suggestion, but some of us just can't do things like that (me for one, that is why I asked my silly question about hard drive recovery on another thread).

[Raffles]

Spike,
You might care to look through the following forum. I don't know if there is anything there that will help but it might be worth looking. (scroll the page down to see the discussion).


http://www.techsupportforum.com/network ... ilure.html

[Burbage]

Hard drive failure would hardly come up with an error in the DVD controller. I seems to me that it is either BIOS or motherboard.

One option might be to restart the computer and go into the BIOS (hold down F8 during startup if I remember correctly, I always have to look that one up) and reset the factory defaults. Then see what happens.

[expat yorkshire]

Try this

http://pcdoctor.sg/

[Jedi]

Have a read through this
http://www.nocrash.com/ncbbs/msgs/3247.shtml

Whats the boot order in your bios?

[Fat Bob]

I reckon it's now a drop, followed by left, then right, right again, pick up and drop, right, right, open window, pick up and throw it out. Correct, eh spike?