Corrupted BIOS???

[Superman53142]

The battery in my old Compaq 200mhz is dead. So whenever I unplug it, it forgets the time and date. Anyway, I unplugged to see if there were multiplier and FSB jumpers on it. When I plugged it back in, it says "Error: check time and date settings". I'm thinking no kidding. It's not 1987 like it says. Below that it says, "Error: CMOS checksum invalid (or something like that)". I think,"Crap." I press F1 to continue. It goes into Windows. I think, "Good." I do a restart. It halts after the POST (my computer has some stupid screen that replaces the POST screen). I restart again and press F4 (my BIOS key). It halts and pops up a screen that is all black with some random white spots. I restart again. Same thing (the white spots). After 5 restarts, it boots. I still can't access the BIOS now matter what I do. But about one in five times the computer will start. Any ideas as to how I can access the BIOS and/or what is up with my computer?

 

[Zuck Gou :)]

Uhhh, sounds like Y2K bug to me.....

 

[KrK]

Superman53142 (Jul 14, 2001 03:07 p.m.):
The battery in my old Compaq 200mhz is dead. So whenever I unplug it, it forgets the time and date. Anyway, I unplugged to see if there were multiplier and FSB jumpers on it. When I plugged it back in, it says "Error: check time and date settings". I'm thinking no kidding. It's not 1987 like it says. Below that it says, "Error: CMOS checksum invalid (or something like that)". I think,"Crap." I press F1 to continue. It goes into Windows. I think, "Good." I do a restart. It halts after the POST (my computer has some stupid screen that replaces the POST screen). I restart again and press F4 (my BIOS key). It halts and pops up a screen that is all black with some random white spots. I restart again. Same thing (the white spots). After 5 restarts, it boots. I still can't access the BIOS now matter what I do. But about one in five times the computer will start. Any ideas as to how I can access the BIOS and/or what is up with my computer?

Hmmmm.... I may be wrong about this but most Compaq's I remember actually load their BIOS data off of the harddrive....? Or maybe that's just the config and setup program, I'm not sure. Maybe your "Image" has been corrupted.

They have these things they call "SoftPaq's" that are boot up diagnostic utils. Those may be able to help you out.

 

[Superman53142]

I found a BIOS update and installed it but I have the same problem. It must be hard drive related because it happens right after my loud Quantum Bigfoot starts up. I got into the BIOS once, however. Banging it three times on the side seems to make it start up correctly.

 

[Kingslayer]

They shoulda called them things "Badfoots" or Slowfoots".

 

[Lancelot]

Are you sure you're accessing the BIOS right? Cuz the all Compaq PC's I know get into the BIOS-setup by depressing F10 when you see a little flashing cursor stripe on a black screen right before it starts booting.

 

[marty]

Is the Quantum a crappy drive??

My brother bought a Maxtor and when he opened the box it was a Quantum. This wasn't what we were expecting. I liked my Maxtors and suggested he buy the good deal on the 40 gig drive. It included a $25 gift card.

I think Quantum was bought by Maxtor!

Hope his HD is alright.

 

[Jon]

Maxtor manufactures all Quantum drives...the Atlas, Bigfoot and Fireball.

 

[!-=sky=-!]

quantum drives are good in my opinion.......i m using it now....and did also use a bigfoot that came with my compaq....

compaq does store the bios and it's settings on the first partition of the drive...i figured that out when i deleted that partition by accident...

in order to get the partition back u will have to use the quick restore disk (it should be a reb background cd with white text written on it) that wipes everything u have installed on the drive and rebuilds the hard drive to the original state with the software pre-installed onto the pc