Sandy Rand

"What to Do When Your Computer Won't Start"

MEETING DATE: January 16, 2015

   Most of us have had a time when our computer, wouldn't start correctly or wouldn't start at all. Sometimes, the computer starts but the Windows operating system never starts or it never finishes loading. Sometimes the computer starts, we can hear it running but nothing appears on the screen. Other times, it just doesn't start at all. No sounds, no fan running, no lights, nothing.

   Each of these scenarios require a different solution. No lights, no sounds, is usually a power problem, bad power supply, bad mother board, even (but rarely) a bad power cord.

   Computer running but nothing on the screen could be bad monitor or monitor cables, again bad motherboard, video problem with the card or the drivers but most commonly a memory issue.

   Computer starts but doesn't find an operating system. This could be a cable disconnected from the hard drive. It could also be a corrupt operating system, a bad hard drive or a wrong setting in the BIOS.

   Computer never loads the operating system successfully. This is sometimes a corrupt operating system but many times can be fixed by running CheckDisk.

   At the meeting, we'll show a tester for diagnosing power supplies. We'll also demonstrate various rescue disks that we've used over the years to diagnose and correct these problems. These disks include Ultimate Boot CD4Windows, BartPE, Hirens Boot CD and Partition Wizard.

   Sandy Rand was in sales management with American Greetings for 30 years. He joined BCUG in 1992 and a few years later, started teaching computer software at Fred Kagel's Freehold Computer Training Center and later at 2 other computer schools. He also started doing consulting and repairs for businesses and homeowners. He started programming and developing Microsoft Access relational databases for business in 1997. Sandy served as a computer lecturer on the QE2 from 1994-97 doing 2 cruises each year. A few years ago, he lectured during 2 cruises on Norwegian Cruise Lines.

   Sandy has led our Windows Workshop since 1994, the Access-VBA Workshop for several years and at times helped out with the Hardware Workshop.

   If any BCUG member has a Windows computer that won't start or runs poorly, we encourage you to bring it to a Windows Workshop. Just let us know in advance as there is only time to work on 1 PC at each meeting.