URGENT! Tonight I turned on my PC and within about three seconds the blue "Intel Inside" screen appeared. As always. But nothing happened after that. No hard drive activity, nothing but the Intel screen. I tried turning it off and back on several times; same thing. Months ago I had prepared for this by creating and testing a Symantec Recovery Disk. I made sure the BIOS was set to boot from the CD drive as the first choice. I've been running weekly backups of my entire C drive and entire D drive with Ghost 15 onto an external USB Passport Essential SE hard drive. I've been taking good care of this PC: regular defrag, disk check, etc.
I inserted the recovery disk into the PC and restarted. Same problem; the blue Intel screen, no sounds of activity on the hard drive, and no sounds from the CD bay indicating that it was starting up (spinning) to read the disk. Restarted the disk again in the second CD bay thinking maybe I was confused on which bay it recognized. No luck.
Last, tried restarting and pressing the F2 key over and over (how this motherboard lets me into the BIOS) from the moment it first tried to start, but no luck. The same blue Intel screen. I'm trying not to panic. Can someone please advise me? I'm using a computer at the public library to reach you folks.
Did you try removing power from it for a minute or so? If that fails, disconnect all printers, external USB devices, card readers, etc . and try again.
If that fails, try removing power and pulling the battery from the motherboard. You may then have to jump a couple of pins to reset the BIOS. If the battery is old, replace it.
It's possible you have a hardware problem. If your system will not boot Ghost can't help you and there might be nothing wrong with your operating system in the first place.
I agree with Red, first thing you need to try is unplugging the system and let it sit and cool down for a while.
You also might want to take the side of the case.
After it's cooled down, try starting it. You should see the fans inside startup and usually you can then hear if the CD-Rom and hard drives are spinning.
If the above advice hasn't fixed your computer, reseat the RAM modules, motherboard power plug and processor power plug. If there is still no boot, remove all pci cards except for the video card. If there is still no boot, unplug your optical drives and any secondary HDs.
I got together with a tech-savvy friend and we decided that, if the motherboard was working correctly, it would have accessed the recovery disk and proceeded. So, a hardware problem. It's in the repair shop now cause I'm not a hardware guy.
Sorry I haven't responded to all of you kind enough to reply, but the only time I have access to a computer is in the evening at this public library. Thank you, and I'll let you know the results for the benefit of anyone who has the same problem in the future and searches this forum!
Redk9258, you were on the right track when you asked about recent changes. So was everyone else who suspected a hardware problem. The repair shop told me that the PC booted up fine with no problems. They ran a series of diagnostics on it and couldn't find anything wrong. The tech said that based on his experience, it might be due to something plugged into one of the USB ports. Bingo. Just recently I installed a Western Digital My Passport Essential SE external USB hard drive for the weekly backups with Ghost 15. Since I had disconnected that along with everything else when I took the PC to the shop, that's why it booted OK. I'm not going to delve into trying to figure out if there's anything I can do via software setting or something like that to get around the problem. When it's time for the weekly backup, I'll make sure the PC is already up and running, and then plug in the external drive. The rest of the time I'll unplug it.
There's one thing I do need to figure out, though. When I got the PC home and started it back up, I got a "Found new hardware" dialog box wanting to install an "Intel 537EP modem." I cancelled out of the box. I haven't used a modem in years, and the one I did have wasn't an Intel. If someone has an answer for that, wonderful. Otherwise, I'll find a forum where that topic fits in.
If you have a Dell that is normal. The OS won't boot if there is a USB device plugged in and the boot order has USB before HD. I'm not sure about other brands.