Crash troubleshooting

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A desktop computer has crashed. The O/S is 64-bit Win 7 Ultimate.

A recent change was partitioning the hard drive. A utility reported drive errors, so I ran the appropriate correction operations, apparently successfully. The crash occurred after running a CD operation using a third-party app.

When I try to start the computer I hear two beeps, one fairly long and the other longer, from inside the machine. The mouse light is on, the keyboard lights flick once only when starting, and the drive light barely flicks from time to time. I am unable to use the repair disk (I can’t set the BIOS to boot from it).

Troubleshooting suggestions are welcome.

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Each BIOS vendor has their own system of beep codes. What BIOS does your computer use? Did you see any type of error code displayed as well?

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Each BIOS vendor has their own system of beep codes. What BIOS does your computer use? Did you see any type of error code displayed as well?

That is a very promising reply, and just the sort of thing I was hoping for.

There is no display because the computer does not reach a point at which there could be a display. However the computer is an HP for which I can look up the model number and presumably the BIOS codes, and I will try to figure that out as soon as I can, and I do (obviously) have other access to the internet. Thank you very much for the suggestion.

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I believe that several years ago I had a similar episode and ultimately had to replace a failing power supply to fix the problem, but if I may offer a suggestion. Once you have the problem solved, set the bios so it checks the optical drive first before going to the hard drive. This way you will hopefully get the ability to boot from the optical drive should such a problem reoccur. This will not affect you boot much. If you accidentally leave a non-OS cd or dvd in the drive the bios will tell you a working OS is not available on the selected media, or something like this and you can remove it and start over. Unfortunately, a failing power supply may not allow you to get to this step.

It may also be helpful to change the Bios battery. Again, if I remember correctly, on another occasion my Bios battery failed causing very unusual symptoms, and this is a pretty easy fix.

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Thank you for the excellent suggestions. The idea of setting the default boot to CD is something I have run across in past without any explanation of the benefit; now I can clearly see the point of it. In my efforts I have been impressed by the apparent refinement of the Win 7 repair disk.

I did succeed in getting the computer to boot several times just by trying, and the diagnosis is that there are still drive errors, which is one of the risks that are associated with partitioning. I have not yet succeeded in correcting that problem, but one thing I did do was to deactivate my Adobe suite installation, which is my most expensive software and which is thereby freed to be installed on another computer. There is nothing like having your precious software installed on a non-functioning machine.

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If it were just a partitioning error, you should still be able to see the display come up. It might not boot, but it is a different set of symptoms from system beeps and no display.

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If it were just a partitioning error, you should still be able to see the display come up. It might not boot, but it is a different set of symptoms from system beeps and no display.

I believe you are right. I gave it another shot and got past the splash screen and past the password, but before things were fully up it quit again and gave me the sounds from within. The sounds are ambiguous enough that I am not sure whether it is a signal or, notably, the CD drive trying unsuccessfully to go through its routine. Now it acts up right from power on. If I do get it to start I should remove the passwords and the second user so as to have the computer start with less input.

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Not to sound too negative, however, I had similar problems with a HP I purchased on line (running Vista) this past summer. Long story short…they replaced it. I had the same problems with the new one, so that was returned as well. I paid two different experts to try to help me figure this out and they couldn’t! Ultimately, the HP was replaced with a new computer from a different mfgr. Needless to say I am not a HP supporter.

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