Date: 08/03/06 (Computer Geeks)    Keywords: no keywords

Right, got this major problem on a computer I get to repair for a friend's mom.
Specs: vaguely, Gateway desktop from 2000ish, 550mhz P3, 320mb ram, cdrw and original cdrom drives, i forget the hdd specs.

I originally got the computer to reset a lost password and that problem was easily solved in a couple minutes (vs spending a few hours on the phone). However, in the middle of digging around my room for some blank floppy disks to make a password recovery disk, the computer just turned off. Weird, so I turned it back on, and it booted back into Windows, no problem. Five seconds later, it turned off AGAIN (btw this was plugged into a UPS, and the other computer plugged into the same UPS was running just fine) for some inexplicable reason. Reboots from that point on only causes one of two things to happen:
1. One in every 10 times: Computer boots into WinXP only to reboot AGAIN within 1-10 minutes.
2. The other 9 times: Computer hangs with the words "Operating system not found."

I've tried booting from several different Windows XP install disks, retail, OEM, school, etc., all known-good install disks, one of which I used one week ago to reinstall the OS on the same computer. It usually hangs at the part where it tells you to press any key to boot from CD, doesn't register ANYTHING from the keyboard, which successfully was used to navigate the BIOS seconds earlier. I've successfully booted into both knoppix and ubuntu dapper, and considered installing both, but can't cause of the user. I pretty much can't do much as I don't have a computer with a floppy drive and WIndows, or anything like that, so can't create any sort of floppy to reflash the BIOS or anything.

Before you even suggest it, I've checked the physical connections, I've used like 15 different keyboards going from like, the early 90s to a couple weeks ago in age, and every single PS/2 and USB port on the computer, checked the BIOS settings, ... All this hardware works. I just have no idea why it won't do a few things. If anyone has a suggestion (like some creative way to run recovery console without a floppy or booting from cdrom), it would be much appreciated.

Source: http://community.livejournal.com/computergeeks/960075.html