Computer start-up problems

I did shut the system down before but I tried again just to be sure and it's still not working. Do you think the problem could be with the seatools cd I burned? It looks fine and boots to it though.

Try it on a different system and see if it works.

I am going to burn another CD however I need to get some more blank ones. A couple of questions: – the sticker on that desktop says SATA harddrive – will the seagate seatools work? – I would like to backup that computer per your instructions in post #60 – but is it possible even though I can't get into that system? I burned that lucid puppy cd but not sure where to go from there.

If you follow the instructions i posted for the Lucid it tells you exactly how to get to the data on your hd and to backup. SATA should make no difference on the HD for the Diagnostics.

Edited because I figured it out

I burned another seatools CD just to check, but for whatever reason, I'm still not able to use the mouse and tab key (keyboard). I know they are good. Do you have any suggestions? Thanks

I have no ideal unless the onboard ps2 is disabled in some way.

Have you tried the SeaTools disk on another system to see if it will boot on it?

Would you be able to post a link to one of the other diagnostics linked in post 5 besides the seatools one that I could try instead?

If your system will boot to a USB flash drive try this HERE

not giving any detailed instructions, just passing along my thoughts to rshaffer61. to be honest rshaffer61, it sounds like the disc is booting fine and she's not getting anywhere because the ps2 keyboard and mouse won't work on that pc, so i think i'd test the ps2 keyboard by attempting to get into the bios. if it works, she should find a setting if she's lucky to enable the use of usb keyboard and mouse, then at least you'll have proven the ps2 keyboard port works on that machine as well as giving her the option of using the usb keyboard/mouse on boot as well. if it doesn't work then, up creak without paddle springs to mind.

Thank you. Just a note: the ps2 mouse and keyboard work fine with the Lucid CD.

Seeing that the Lucid Linux cd allows the use of the PS2 keyboard and mouse that tells me the issue is not the bios but a boot issue with the diagnostics disk. Through all this i have forgotten is the system capable of booting into Windows at all either normally or from Safe Mode? If so we may be able to use a windows version of the diagnostics as much as I don't like them but at least it will tell us something then.

I don't think we ever discussed it,but unfortunately it will not boot in safe mode.

OK I want to check something from the beginning of all this.
When you went into the bios and checked the boot sequence are you saying no hard drive is showing up?
Is there a General tab in your bios and if so what does it show for identified drives?
If everything is working it should identify a Hard Drive and a Optical drive also known as a cd\dvd drive.