[globaljoe]

After noticing my system clock was not keeping the correct time on a Packard Bell iMEDIA X2415 desktop running XP Pro, I removed the battery and went out and bought a new CMOS battery, which was a direct replacement for the original battery, after fitting the battery I restarted the system which then gave me one of those blue screens which we all love! with the error code 0x0000007B, indicating an inaccessible boot device, the rest of the blue screen code is (0xB84c3524,0C0000034,0x00000000,0x00000000) which, after a little research, indicates a device driver problem. In the standard CMOS setup the Primary IDE master is not detected, it is a SATA drive anyway, under advanced setup, the first boot device is the DVD drive, and the second boot device is my hard drive, listed as PO-ST3500620AS, so the system is recognizing the hard drive but cannot access it. I loaded Ubuntu linux from the DVD drive to check the condition of the hard drive which came out as an uncorrupted NTFS file system. I'm thinking, if it is a corrupt driver file, then replacing the driver on a system that will not boot could be problematical. I'm sitting here wondering how all this hassle could come about from a simple CMOS battery change!
Any help with this problem will be gratefully received.
Thanks.

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Did you unplug the computer from the wall and touch bare metal of the case interior BEFORE reaching in to remove or replace the battery?

When you booted the first time after replacing the battery, did you "Save" and Exit?

[Digerati]

Did you unplug the computer from the wall and touch bare metal of the case interior BEFORE reaching in to remove or replace the battery?

When you booted the first time after replacing the battery, did you "Save" and Exit?

[globaljoe]

I was wearing an anti-static strap when I replaced the battery, also did the save and exit bit.

[Digerati]

[quotename='Digerati']Did you unplug the computer from the wall and touch bare metal of the case interior BEFORE reaching in to remove or replace the battery?

When you booted the first time after replacing the battery, did you "Save" and Exit? [/quote][quotename='globaljoe']I was wearing an anti-static strap when I replaced the battery, also did the save and exit bit. [/quote]What about unplug from the wall?

[globaljoe]

Nope, didn't unplug it But in my messing around in the Bios I came across a setting which said SATA Primary master channel is disabled so I was going to enable it but got interrupted and now I can't find my way back into it, I'm sure it was under Integrated Peripherals but cannot seem to find it again!

[globaljoe]

I found the option I was looking for, and enabled it but still no change.

[Digerati]

Nope, didn't unplug it

This could be a problem. If you don't unplug it, or at least set the master power switch on your PSU (if the PSU has one) to off, then the PSU provides the ATX Form Factor required +5Vsb standby voltage across many points on the motherboard.

The SATA controller may be called a RAID controller, though you typically can set it to emulate EIDE.

[Digerati]

Well, you may have a corrupt HD. See http://support.microsoft.com/kb/324103

[globaljoe]

Thanks Digerati, I'll remember that, but after turning the system on this morning to have another go at solving the problem I got the: There is a problem with windows screen, I clicked on the "start windows normally" and what do you know! it booted up to the operating system, I shut the system down to make sure this was not some weird one off fluke, but it booted up again, this time without the problem with windows screen. I'd left the hard drive setting last night as RAID after trying every setting under the sun to get it working so the only thing I have done today was to set it back to SATA. I must have had a series of settings in the BIOS wrong and it must have been a matter of getting all of the settings right at the same time. Only one problem remains, the system clock is still gaining time at the rate of about 2hrs for every 30 mins, I changed the new CMOS battery from the new one to the original battery but they were both gaining time, but I think I can put up with that, I don't fancy going through all of that hassle again!

[Digerati]

You mean if you set it to 10AM, by 10:30 it will say 12:30? That is not good, for sure as it suggest you have a motherboard clock issue that most likely cannot be repaired.

You may be able to work around this by installing Dimension4 (D4) – a great atomic clock synchronization program I used to use on all my XP systems.

[globaljoe]

Thanks Digerati, that sorted that problem out.

[Digerati]

Great. But that is typically for systems where the time drifts a few minutes a week, not 4 minutes for every minute. So, I would be diligent at making backups, and start saving your pennies for a new computer.

Thanks for the followup.