Boot Issues on Akoya A10

[Alondonboy]

Got an Old Akoya A10 PC P4020D, not used much over the years and have wiped and reinstalled a few times. Recently I've had a problem where when booting it would either take ages or just go to a small cursor top left, F8, select drive and it booted fine.

Last week it failed completely. Select drive as as it tries to boot uou get a quick windows logo then bluescreen. Tried repairs and scans and just can't get it to start. No restore points for some reason so took drive out and reinstalled Windows with another drive.

Got finished last night, everything installed as I want and made restore point. Went to boot this morning and it's doing the same as before, just going to cursor. restarted with F8, select drive and fine. This makes me think it must be the machine, thinking BIOS. Am I right or could it be something else?

BIOS is probably original as dated 11/03/2010 so I'm guessing there's an update. Could somebody direct me please?

BIOS says 'American Megatrends Inc. A7621MLN.208' if that helps.

TIA

[Mallia]

@Alondonboy 

Kindly provide the MSN of the product. The MSN is located on a label stuck to the product.

[daddle]

@Alondonboy 

You can check and find your PC-Model and its MSN here

--> https://www.medion.com/de/service/topic/medion-products?msnCheck=%20P4020D

Those were most All In one PCs with Win 7 and a Legacy Bios.

Did you Upgrade during time passing by to Win 8.1  or  Win 10 ?

Or it is still Win 7?  

Cheers, daddle

[Alondonboy]

MSN 10013778

[Alondonboy]

Still running Win7 from the original discs although recently wiped and reinstalled. Also computer is really slow, is there any way to access and clean inside, like vents and fan?

[Fishtown]

Hello @Alondonboy  and welcome
I would first replace the bios battery then load the "Load Optimized Defaults" values ​​in the bios.

battery replacement see here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=Grt-CxNnLjs

(But please do not use metal objects to pry it out)

To disassemble the device for cleaning, see here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3TEezvPyEQ

You can also replace the battery then.

bye Fishtown

[Alondonboy]

So I'm back with problems on this machine which I never managed to fully resolve.

Machine was temperamental and I finally got around to changing the battery and clearing CMOS. Reset to default in BIOS and set time and date but still the same problem.

Rarely it would boot to windows on it's own. It will go through initial startup and then when it should go to windows it's either just a black screen with cursor or say no operating system found. If I then restart, F8 and select drive to boot from it was always fine.

Now since changing the battery when it starts windows and the logo comes up it flashes a blue screen and restarts. I've been on this a few days now and have noticed the BIOS doesn't seem to retain the date and time but I've tested the battery and it is good. Also the hard disk is coming up as HDD...... when it used to say SATA..... which it did before. When it comes up as HDD is when it seems to not start. I can see no option to change it in BIOS as it only recognises it as HDD.

I pretty sure it's not windows as it's done this for years now and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. Also it done the same with a previous drive and I brought a new exactly the same and reinstalled windows which worked a few times and the same thing happened. When I could get it to start before I changed the battery the time was all wrong in windows so had reset that which I was hoping new battery would sort however this has just caused this new problem. REALLY desperate now as a problem has arisen and all the files I need are on it and it's the only machine connected to printer. I really just think it's more to do with the BIOS than the drive and my experience with that is limited.

Sorry for the long post but I'm trying to include as much information as possible and any help will be appreciated. As stated I'm pretty desperate now and as an 'older person' not as savvy on these things as some of you wizzkids 🙂

[daddle]

@Alondonboy 

I pretty sure it's not windows as it's done this for years now and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. Also it done the same with a previous drive and I brought a new exactly the same and reinstalled windows which worked a few times and the same thing happened.  🙂

---

You could get a SATA SSD notebook drive  2.5" . maybe it's more reliable.

Before create a Win 10 Installation Stick not for installation of Win 10,  but you could check your harddisk with it)

Get yourself a 8-16 GB USB stick, and make use of the Microsoft  MediaCreationTool,  choose 32 or 64 bit, depending what you actually use. And download it from with an  other PC  and choose "For another PC" 

Boot from the stick, and in the first or second little opening Windows click for Repair option in the left below corner.

It will take a little time , and in the opening Win RE you can check and Repair the Boot and  startup sectors on your disk. (no worry, it works also with Win 7!)

Although often it says afterwards " It couldn't  repair anything, it still might have done some  magic". You have to give it a chance.

Cheers, daddle

[Alondonboy]

I can start it in safe mode and run a repair which I've done numerous times but it says everything is ok. I've run repair from a fob as well and it flies through and says everything is ok and given it used to do this all the time before I'm convinced the problem isn't with windows but the BIOS.

I'd like to understand why it is not recognising the drive for what it is, that may well be a problem worth eliminating.

Could the BIOS be corrupt? Is there an update or can it be reinstalled?

Thanks for the advice. As I say I've spent 3 days on this now and much of the basic stuff I've already tried.

[daddle]

@Alondonboy 

Off course everything can be defective. Te mainboard, the RAM, the Proc. or the HDD.

If the HDD isn't recognized as SATA, there's something wrong with the HDD or with the SATA port on the main board. The computer is  after all already 15 years old, so it's not unlikely that there are electronic failures or weaknesses in the components.