If you do not receive any beeps, error codes or messages and your computer still will not boot, then problem is Windows will not start. Note: POST makes a single beep to test speaker; this is not an error.

If you have a damaged partition table, boot record, or FAT, you can use Nuts & Bolts Disk Minder or Norton Disk Doctor to make a repair. You must have utility on a bootable floppy disk and execute it from floppy. Or you can install a new hard drive and load Windows and one of above utility suites on new hard drive. Then configure old drive as slave and repair it from new drive.

Note: If your hard drive makes a loud whining noise when you first start your computer, you need to run out and get that new hard drive now.

The first step to repair a computer that won't boot is to find out what "it won't boot" means. If during boot you did not receive any of errors mentioned above, that probably means Windows won't start. How to repair that problem is covered in another article. ---------------------------------------------------------- Resource Box: Copyright(C)2002 Bucaro TecHelp. To learn how to maintain your computer and use it more effectively to design a Web site and make money on Web visit http://bucarotechelp.com To subscribe to Bucaro TecHelp Newsletter Send a blank email to bucarotechelp-subscribe@topica.com ----------------------------------------------------------

Resource conflicts related to sound cards are usually caused by sharing an IRQ (Interrupt Request). The default setting for a sound card is usually IRQ 5. The sound card should not share an IRQ with any other device.

If you can't determine reason why sound card does not work, or you can't solve a resource conflict, you may need to uninstall and re-install sound card.

To uninstall sound card, open Add/Remove Programs utility in Control Panel. Scroll through list of installed software and select any programs related to your sound card. Click on Add/Remove button to uninstall program.

Open System utility in Control Panel and select Device Manager tab. In Device Manager open "Sound video and game controllers" branch. Click on name of your sound card and then click on Remove button.

After removing sound card's software and drivers, turn off computer and physically remove sound card. I like to restart computer without sound card to make sure Windows plug-an-play can't find any of software components of sound card. Then turn off computer and re-install sound card in a different slot. You may have to switch slots with another card.

If your computer can play WAV files, then that verifies that your sound card has been installed properly and your speakers are working. Playing more complex sound file formats like MIDI or MP3 requires more layers of software. We will cover how to troubleshoot those in future articles. ---------------------------------------------------------- Resource Box: Copyright(C)2002 Bucaro TecHelp. To learn how to maintain your computer and use it more effectively to design a Web site and make money on Web visit http://bucarotechelp.com To subscribe to Bucaro TecHelp Newsletter Send a blank email to bucarotechelp-subscribe@topica.com ----------------------------------------------------------