Windows ME HP Recovery fails after disc1

I have a second computer in the house that gave me alot of troubles and crashed about a year ago. I'm now trying to get it running again without spending too much$ Since it crashed my wife bought this fine Dell Dimension 4550 so the HP has been collecting dust.

It's an HP pavillion 8755 800 MHz P3 128 MB running windows ME. It claims to have 11 MB of shared video memory, but the BIOS says there is only 1 MB.

A little background on it. I bought it refurbed from Ubid about 3 years ago. It always had a lock up problem, although at first, when it was under warranty, it rarely happened so I didn't worry. As time passed the lock ups became more frequent. When it happened the computer would completely freeze, nothing functioned and whatever was on the screen remained there. No keyboard function, no mouse no Ctrl Alt Del, nothing would work.

So the computer would have to be turned off by holding the power button in. Then, here's the funky part, I would have to wait about 10 minutes before rebooting, otherwise it would lock up while loading the OS and desktop. And if I didn't wait long enough, then how far it loaded would depend on how long I had waited. In other words, If I waited just a few secondes it would lock up right after that little window said "getting system files". But if I waited say 6 minutes, then everything would come up on the desktop, but then it would freeze.

Certain programs made it lock up instantly, every time. WIndows media player 7 would ALWAYS INSTANTLY make it lock. It often locked on Realplayer, but not always. MS word would sometimes but not always lock it. Explorer hardly ever locked it.

One day it crashed and I couldn't reboot it, soon before that happened it was locking up very frequently.

I tried the HP ME recovery discs and tried the partial recovery so that I wouldn't lose files that I wanted (big lesson on backup's!). But when I ran the recovery discs it would lock up during the recovery, usually when it came time to remove disc 1 and put in disc 2.

I talked to our IT manager where I work, he suggested the HD might be the culprit. So he loaned me a brand new hard drive and also let me borrow windows 2000 installation discs to try instead of the ME recovery discs.

I installed the new drive, formatted it and then first tried the complete recovery using the HP ME recovery discs. Again, it gets through the first disc (there are 3 discs), then when it prompts for disc 2, the computer freezes. I put disc 2 in and hit K (OK) and nothing happens. I can hit every key, function key, C, A, D, nothing works. I also tried booting the recovery discs from the DVD drive, same problem.

I tried the windows 2000 installation with a similar problem, when I get to the stage where it asks for another disc ( he gave me a windows NT disc) to put in the drive, it locks.

So it's not the HD.

I did come across a similar problem on one of the posts on this web page. Someone had a pavilion 8665 I think with the same kind of lock up problem (but he didn't have the crash and recovery failure). The solution was to install a graphics card.

This has me thinking that maybe there's a problem with the on board graphics memory, and maybe something failed on it that made the lock up problem worse with time?

So now I'm thinking about buying a relatively cheap graphics card to see if that fixes the problem...any thoughts ?

 

You may need to replace the ram. Or alternatively if you have a couple of sticks in the puter take one out, if it still locks up put that one back in and take the other one out and try it.

 

Hello Back after trying several things.

As I mentioned the brand new (borrowed) hard drive didn't help.

The same IT guy loaned me a 32 MB PC100 SDRAM stick.

I removed the 128 stick from the PC and put in the 32 and tried recovery. Same lock up after recovery disc 1 is done loading. The file extraction was much slower with the 32.

Then I put the 128 back in with the 32 and tried it. File exctraction was much faster, but after loading disc 2, Same lock up.

IT guy also loaned me a video card, tried that. Same lock up. One funny thing, I tried to disable the onboard video in BIOS, but it wouldn't give me that option. Only option was to select 512 K or 1 Mb. I kept it at 1 Mb.

Is thing ready for boat anchor status???

IT guy suggested buying a new motherboard. But I don't want to turn this into a money pit.

Any new ideas, anyone??

 

I'm wondering if these recovery disks are any good. I assume that they're floppy disks. If they are try replacing your floppy drive. Or if there is nothing on the hard drive that you really want you could format and do a fresh install, and if the culprit is a hardware device (which it probably is) it will more then likely rare its ugly head when you try to install the new OS.Also you could try unpluging every device except the ram>HD>video card> and floppy drive, and try and run the recovery disks.

 

My HP recovery disc also locks the machine...last time I used the method thats given on the site below.....it worked...


http://h20015.www2.hp.com/en/docume...Id=hppavilion20890&docName=bph07140&cat=setup

 

Thanks for the advice Chalky, should have tried the HP site to start with. I made some progress, but alas no joy.

I followed the instructions from the HP web page and stepped through the start up. This allowed both recovery discs to run. I was excited, things were going well...

Windows ME started up and I was jumping through the initiation screens, then I got to the license agreement page. But the screen graphics were out of whack. I couldn't accept the license agreements because they were off the page. I tried tab-ing but that didn't work.

So I shut the machine down and re booted. Then I could only get as far as the little window for the system preparation where the papers are flying into the folder. Then it locked up.

I removed the video card I had borrowed and tried again. Same lock up.

I've tried it 5 or 6 time and it never gets past that system file preparation window.

Any new suggestions???

 

I'm running W98se...I took my ME upgrade off because I found it so unstable...however... I remembered I had some info somewhere.....this is what I saved previously when I had problems with ME...I think it's all there...

On some Pavilion computers-registration options may be hidden after a
recovery has been performed... The registration screen should appear as
shown in the figure below...( didn't save the pic...sorry... ) but instead the lower options on the agreement form cannot be seen because they are below the screen...

Use the following steps to continue past this screen and to
accept the Windows Millenium licensing agreement:

1. Press and hold the ALT key then press the A key.
2. Press and hold the ALT key then press the C key.
3. Press Return.
For information on "Troubleshooting Recovery Problems in Windows 98 and
Me" take a look at the url below....


http://h20015.www2.hp.com/hub_search/document.jhtml?lc=en&docName=bph07140

Hope this is of some help...