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

[Alondonboy]

Problem was I hardly used it so that probably hasn't helped.

Do you know where I can get a copy or update of the BIOS? Is it on this site anywhere as can only see drivers on the specific page. Going to refresh/update that first and see if that works. If not I'll try a different drive but I'm pretty sure it's not the drive as if I boot from flash it's ready to install windows again and from disk and flash I can run repair so to me it's reading it just some conflict between BIOS and disk.

[daddle]

@Alondonboy

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@Alondonboy  schrieb

Do you know where I can get a copy or update of the BIOS? Is it on this site anywhere as can only see drivers on the specific page. ......  so to me it's reading it just some conflict between BIOS and disk.

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It's all just guessing. Nobody can say why it performs erraticlly.

You shoul'd take out all interior stuff, eg CD//DVD drive,cardreader, RAM etc and replace it piece by piece, to check if it makes a difference. If you have two RAM modules, check them each  separately.

Edit:  And deactivate and/or take the TV-Tuner CTX1920 -A/-T miniPCIe card out.   DVB--T is off; the new DVB-T2 can not be handled with this old TV card

For a Bios Update ask @Major_ToM  for this old dear.

Major, could you please help ?

Actual Bios is originally dated 11/03/2010, American Megatrends Inc. A7621MLN.208. 

MEDION AKOYA P4020 D (MD 8870) AIO A-UK, MSN is 10013778.  

daddle

[Major_ToM]

Hi @Alondonboy ,

as a matter of fact we can provide Bios version 2.09,which can be run from the command line.

Please remind, that for any errors, caused by the execution of this update, we don´ t accept any responsibility for damage or lost of data.

Cheers

Major ToM

[daddle]

@Major_ToM 

Thanks for providing the Bios.

With " Bios version 2.09,which can be run from the command line"  do you mean from a DOS cmd--line, or inside  a cmd window in Windows 7

Gruß, daddle

[Major_ToM]

HI @daddle ,

with this machine we usually provided a bootable (so called) "MEDION Driver & Support -Disc", which booted the machine to a DOS cmd--line, from which the update could be executed.

I also might work with the Windows cmd, but I únfortunately do not obtain a product sample to check this

Cheers

Major ToM

[daddle]

@Major_ToM 

Thank you for yous answer. It will not work in windows cmd  because the AFU431.EXE is a DOS flash file.

See also Andi's explanation; the linked download uses the same AFU431.EXE.

@Alondonboy 

If you still have the by Major_ToM mentioned Support CD it_'s all clear.

Otherwise prepare a  DOS diskette or a Dos Bootable USB Stick.

May be you even still have an old Win 98 start diskette; this would do as well- your old PC should still be equipped with a floppy disk drive. (But it works with an external diskette drive with a DOS diskette, )

You can  decompress te Bios File to partititon C:\ into the root; or in the root of the DOS USB stick.  

If you  boot  DOS from the USB Stick, the partition C.\ might have changed it's drive letter to D.

So if you want to change path in the cmd window to original partition C:\, it might be called D now.

 In the Root of the USB stick just call the flash.bat.

Success, daddle

Edit:  Aktualisiert 

[Alondonboy]

This is really bugging me now as I've wasted hours on this and need the PC to be getting on with work.

Have pulled the drive out and installed a 250gb one which has been wiped and formatted. It's getting recognised in the bios but when I try to install Windows there's no drive there?!?! I've had this before where I've forgotten to format it but it is still recognised and gives you the option during install to format it.

Is this an issue within BIOS?? Can anyone explain what's happening??

[daddle]

@Alondonboy

No we can not, as long as we do not know what sort of disk you bought.  Is it  a HDD or an SSD, in 2.5" Notebook size? Is it a SATA disk?

Second what windows are you trying to install? Win 7 or Win 10?  0r even Win 11???

[Alondonboy]

So to be clear it's Win7 I'm installing and all drives are 3.5" SATA.

After a fault with the original drive I upgraded to a WD 1tb SATA. This started getting unreliable and begun having start up problems so I put in a new identical disk and was running that. After a while this started having the same problems and I noticed there was clock issues so I changed the CMOS battery. Since changing it I've not been able to start Windows.

The 250gb SATA drive I tried earlier that couldn't be recognised may be my fault. I've not put it in an external drive to have a look at it yet but it's possible I formatted it without allocating a drive letter so I won't worry about that for now.

Have fitted a 500gb SATA drive and have managed to get windows installed on that so the PC is up and running. Starts on it's own without having to go into F8 at the moment so all good.

What I don't understand is that the 1tb SATA drive that I took out (second one) will not work in an external drive. If I open it in computer management the partitions are there and recognised but in explorer there's nothing. This makes me think there drive is shot but then how could windows do a repair or try to install on it if it isn't readable??

This PC just eats through drives and i rarely use it.

[daddle]

@Alondonboy 

It looks like you make use of old of second hand drives, or drives from a second PC you own-

Whatsoever we can not know anything why the HDDs collapse.. But then you are contradicting yourself. 

The one drive is formatted and  recognized by your PC, but then you say it's no good.

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@Alondonboy  schrieb:

......

What I don't understand is that the 1tb SATA drive that I took out (second one) will not work in an external drive. If I open it in computer management the partitions are there and recognized

 but in explorer there's nothing. This makes me think there drive is shot but then how could windows do a repair or try to install on it if it isn't readable??

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Well, if a drive ist partitioned and then formatted it is empty.   Then it will be seen by the Bios and by Windows. Also in the disk management.  So whats the problem?

May  be the Bios and MB is not made for 1 TB drives.

But I can not diagnose on a distance without having the disk physically in hands, what's wrong with it. Sorry, the Thread is completed, your PC runs on a 500GB drive now, and Windows is working.

So I am out here....

bye, daddle