Major Computer Crash

[wingspar]

Not sure where to post this, so move if necessary.

 

I was gone for a few days. When I got home and turned my computer on, the date was days off. I reset it but it was off this morning. A friend told me I needed to replace the battery on my motherboard. Did that, and now I have no computer. I got the DOS screen that told me to insert Installation CD. XP Home. I got the option to repair, but that would not work, so I ended up reinstalling Windows. I knew to unplug my other internal drives first, but did not do it. Once installed, my C drive is now the D drive, and it reassigned drive letters for my other two drives also. It will not let me reassign new drive letters for any of the drives. Some programs work, some will not. On top of all of this, I can not connect to the internet no matter what I do. I got my antivirus program installed and working, but I can’t update it.

 

I don’t know what to do now. What the computer has labeled as the C drive is actually another internal drives with thousands of photos on it. I’m thinking that because my real C drive is now the D drive, I will have problems forever.

 

What is my best option to get my computer back without having to reinstall everything?

[SpikeSoprano]

You can't connect to the internet because with xp you have to install the lan driver for your mb. Un plug any other hd's except the os one and after a restart the pc should reassign the drive letters, then shut down and plug in the other hd's and restart.If you don't have the mb driver disk you will have to use another pc to dl the drivers and use a usb drive to install them to your pc.

[wingspar]

You can't connect to the internet because with xp you have to install the lan driver for your mb. Un plug any other hd's except the os one and after a restart the pc should reassign the drive letters, then shut down and plug in the other hd's and restart.If you don't have the mb driver disk you will have to use another pc to dl the drivers and use a usb drive to install them to your pc.

 

WOW! I don’t have enough words to thank you properly. That was such an easy fix. I have my old computer back after hours and hours of anguish that I didn’t need to go thru, and I’m posting this reply from it. I was telling myself to unplug all the drives before inserting the Windows CD, but and went ahead and left them connected out of sheer laziness. I had no idea I could unplug them, and then Windows would correctly assign the drive letters when I posted this question.

 

Again, thank you Very Much.

 

One final question. Why would replacing the motherboard battery cause me to have to reinsert the Windows CD?

[SpikeSoprano]

Because when you remove the battery the bios sets back to factory default when it had the original hd. If after you installed the new battery you had gone into the bios and reset the boot drives you would not have had to reload windows.

Glad I could help,

 

 

[wingspar]

Thanks again. I built this computer years ago and since it has been such a good computer, doing things like upgrading parts or going into the BIOS is just something I never think about anymore. I just got totally lost. What really threw me for a loop was that a friend replaced the battery on her motherboard a year or so ago, and had zero problems. Just pull the old battery out, stick the new one in, and continue.

 

It seems like all my problems are fixed, and nothing got broken. I’ve become more of a computer user rather than a tweaker, and have forgot most of what I used to know.