Hey guys, I'm stuck. Stuck big.
I have a little eMachines EL1200 computer I rescued from the turn-in pile on Saturday. I actually took it right from the owner, so it didn't get jarred around in the pile, and it works/worked great. Has Windows XP on it, and I installed a second DDR2 RAM stick so it's running on 2GB. AMD Athlon Neo 64 chip at 1.6 GHz. Nice little small-form-factor computer for my daughter's desk.
I was updating it this weekend via Microsoft Update. I've almost got it completely through all the update cycles, all the .Net updates, all the security updates (I don't think it had ever been updated), etc. I made a mistake and let it download an nVidia LAN driver update, after which I could no longer access the internet (via ethernet port). Nuts. I couldn't find a way to rollback the LAN driver, so I uninstalled the LAN driver via nVidia's applet. I did not uninstall the video or the chipset drivers, just the LAN adapter.
Restarted the computer and I have no video. It will display the "Windows XP" startup screen with the little green "Night Rider" scroll bar, after which the screen goes black. The computer continues to boot up and after a few moments, disk activity quiets and I can tell it's "up". I can press the power button and disk activity resumes and a few moments later, the computer turns off. So I know it's still operating right, I'm just getting no video.
Problem is, I can't get Windows to recognize a USB mouse/keyboard or a PS2 mouse/keyboard in any of the alternative boot modes (safe mode, VGA mode, etc). The hardware recognizes them (the mice have the red optical laser light and the keyboards will light the NUM LOCK indicator). I can go into the BIOS with F2 just fine. But once Windows takes over, I no longer have any input. I'm confident that I could get the driver situation straightened out if I could just boot into safe mode with an input device. Any suggestions?
Alternatively, I've read various places that F11 will let me boot off the restore partition. I know the restore partition is still there; I could see it in the Disk Management section of the Computer Management applet in Windows. But anyone know how to access it at start up and let me restore the computer? If it will absolutely refuse to recognize any input device, I don't have a problem with dropping back to punt, and just restore it fresh. But it doesn't respond to any F-keys other than F8 to load the Windows boot option screen.
If I REALLY wanted to punt, I have a copy of Windows 7 I could put on it, but I've also seen in various forums that 7 can be a problematic install on these and Vista is the latest OS supported. Some have said that the 32-bit version of 7 doesn't go on very well, but the 64-bit version works okay (problem is, I don't have a 64-bit version).
eMachines is Gateway/Acer, right? They all say F11 for restore. It's frustrating...I got it almost done, then dorked it up with a simple hardware driver update. I've made this mistake before...if the hardware is working right, don't mess with the drivers!!
I have a little eMachines EL1200 computer I rescued from the turn-in pile on Saturday. I actually took it right from the owner, so it didn't get jarred around in the pile, and it works/worked great. Has Windows XP on it, and I installed a second DDR2 RAM stick so it's running on 2GB. AMD Athlon Neo 64 chip at 1.6 GHz. Nice little small-form-factor computer for my daughter's desk.
I was updating it this weekend via Microsoft Update. I've almost got it completely through all the update cycles, all the .Net updates, all the security updates (I don't think it had ever been updated), etc. I made a mistake and let it download an nVidia LAN driver update, after which I could no longer access the internet (via ethernet port). Nuts. I couldn't find a way to rollback the LAN driver, so I uninstalled the LAN driver via nVidia's applet. I did not uninstall the video or the chipset drivers, just the LAN adapter.
Restarted the computer and I have no video. It will display the "Windows XP" startup screen with the little green "Night Rider" scroll bar, after which the screen goes black. The computer continues to boot up and after a few moments, disk activity quiets and I can tell it's "up". I can press the power button and disk activity resumes and a few moments later, the computer turns off. So I know it's still operating right, I'm just getting no video.
Problem is, I can't get Windows to recognize a USB mouse/keyboard or a PS2 mouse/keyboard in any of the alternative boot modes (safe mode, VGA mode, etc). The hardware recognizes them (the mice have the red optical laser light and the keyboards will light the NUM LOCK indicator). I can go into the BIOS with F2 just fine. But once Windows takes over, I no longer have any input. I'm confident that I could get the driver situation straightened out if I could just boot into safe mode with an input device. Any suggestions?
Alternatively, I've read various places that F11 will let me boot off the restore partition. I know the restore partition is still there; I could see it in the Disk Management section of the Computer Management applet in Windows. But anyone know how to access it at start up and let me restore the computer? If it will absolutely refuse to recognize any input device, I don't have a problem with dropping back to punt, and just restore it fresh. But it doesn't respond to any F-keys other than F8 to load the Windows boot option screen.
If I REALLY wanted to punt, I have a copy of Windows 7 I could put on it, but I've also seen in various forums that 7 can be a problematic install on these and Vista is the latest OS supported. Some have said that the 32-bit version of 7 doesn't go on very well, but the 64-bit version works okay (problem is, I don't have a 64-bit version).
eMachines is Gateway/Acer, right? They all say F11 for restore. It's frustrating...I got it almost done, then dorked it up with a simple hardware driver update. I've made this mistake before...if the hardware is working right, don't mess with the drivers!!
