need computer help

[andrew.brandon]

Well I got my new computer up and running however I have a serious problem. when I first turned it on I smelled a wire burning so I immeditally cut it off. I traced the smell to what I thought was the problem, an old sound card. I pulled the sound card and fired everything back up. no smells or problems. then I go into bios to check it out and see what options I got. Then I notice it is not reading my hard drive. I try a fer diffrent things and I have come to the conclusion that it the smell was by hard drive taking a crap on me. well I just happen to have a new HD in the box that I can use, however I do not remember how to make a start up disk, and I canot put an old copy of windows on cd since I do not have a cd burner on this computer(the parents). I am clueless about what to do. it has been so long since I took PC repair I have forgotten almost everything. can I get some help?

[12secondv6]

Yes, smash it on the ground..... step on it.... then buy a new one [img]smile.gif[/img]

[andrew.brandon]

lol I already got a new one [img]tongue.gif[/img]

[12secondv6]

Oh.... well.... that was the extent of my computer brains ...... [img]tongue.gif[/img]

[mike h]

put the old copy of windows in the CD-rom. i doubt it would make a difference if ur HD is bad though. you might need a new one. if it isnt booting, try getting a diff HD (out of another comp, with windows on it), set that one as master, use ur crapped one as slave and get on to windows to see if it reads at all.

[andrew.brandon]

well I got some pics since I can't do anything else at the moment.

http://www.cardomain.com/memberpage/673250/3

[andrew.brandon]

the thing is, I canot put an old copy on cd since I have no cd burner on this computer I am using now. and I already have a new HD, problem is it is completly blank. no OS. and the parents won't let me try it on their computer, something about crashing their computer like 10 years ago or something [img]tongue.gif[/img]

[C.O.Jones]

?? What am I missing. Can't you change the boot order in your bios? If you have XP or 2000 then the CD is a boot up disk.

If you have 98 you can make a starup disk.

[Razzer]

haha been there done that too many times, like the guy above said, put the new drive in, run the xp disk and restart from scratch. If that isn't the problem, you may destroy another drive, kinda sucks.

[Tyler]

simple.. take old hard drive out, put new hard drive in, set it to master. start the computer..computer will say.. "new hardware configuration has been recognized, will need to restart for new settings to take place." Once it restarts put the windows xp cd in there and bam. By default all new bios are set to check the cd first before the hard drive. if anything. f2 or esc for bios setup depending on bios manufacturer. and change the boot sequence.

its simple as hell.

[3.4 slow to go]

it sounds like he doesn't have an OS disk. bite the bullet & get a full copy of XP for liek $99.

[andrew.brandon]

Originally posted by 3.4 slow to go:
it sounds like he doesn't have an OS disk. bite the bullet & get a full copy of XP for liek $99.

yup exactly. and I did buy another copy, only to find out that that power supply was the culprit. its going bad. didn't actually do any damage to the HD at all, just doesn’t have the juice to spin it. took it my uncle who is the electronics and computer repair teacher at my old high school, we tried several different things only to come to that conclusion. I didn't think to put the HD back into my old computer and try it. I did a few minuets ago and it works. this sucks. now I cant use the new hotness until I send this PSU back and get a replacement.

anyone ever have to send anything back to tigerdirect.com? do they give you any hassel?