Don't know how to check DIMMs from DOS

Post #158,140 by lincoln 6/2/04 2:41:02 PM 6/2/04 2:43:59 PM Reply	Don't know how to check DIMMs from DOS and I only know of one place on this side of town that may have memory that will fit this system anymore. How do I verify if the memory and/or the power supply is the culprit? I agree that the HD may not have truly "crashed" since I am able to see it and access various folders from a DOS prompt. Is it possible to restore/reload the OS without trashing my existing partitions and wiping out the files within them? lincoln "Windows XP has so many holes in its security that any reasonable user will conclude it was designed by the same German officer who created the prison compound in "Hogan's Heroes." - Andy Ihnatko, Chicago Sun-Times [link\|mailto:bconnors@ev1.net\|contact me] Edited by lincoln June 2, 2004, 02:43:59 PM EDT Expand All History
Post #158,141 by Another Scott 6/2/04 2:46:20 PM Reply	MemTest86 and ... [link\|http://www.memtest86.com/\|MemTest86] - I've not used it myself. For the power supply, there are often other indications of problems. E.g. my old 486 would die during the initial BIOS message after painting random numbers of text characters of the message. Swapping the PS out fixed it. The simplest way to check it is to swap in a new PS. If you don't have one to swap in, then you might get lucky by simply checking the +/-12V, +/-5V lines and seeing if they are in-spec. But usually when PSs die they have problems supplying enough current. It's more difficult to check that (you have to have an ammeter in series in the circuit). HTH. Cheers, Scott.
Post #158,152 by lister 6/2/04 3:33:27 PM Reply	I've used MemTest86 It seems pretty thorough. Let it do several passes to exercise the memory well. It's a self-booting floppy. lister
Post #158,155 by folkert 6/2/04 3:36:34 PM Reply	The newer KNOPPIX CDs have it as a boot option. -- [link\|mailto:greg@gregfolkert.net\|greg], [link\|http://www.iwethey.org/ed_curry\|REMEMBER ED CURRY!] @ *i_wethey* I've decided to become a perfectionist. That way I'll have more reasons to hate people. Your recycled electrons annoy me. Please use new electrons.
Post #158,201 by Andrew Grygus 6/2/04 9:07:23 PM Reply	Actually, everything can be perfectly OK . . . . and you can still get this sort of problem. The worst nightmare is a power failure just long enough to damage the OS but not long enough to kill it. I've seen that happen a couple of times over the years. I have carefully examined a couple of cases like yours and found what had happened was a block of data was written to a disk address occupied by the FAT table. Why was it written there? As I've told the clients, "Nobody will ever know". [link\|http://www.aaxnet.com\|AAx]

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