Monitor won't turn on in safe mode so now I can't see to get out of safe mode...

[ultranothing]

Hi! So I'm on step 453 of a two day long technology battle, trying to test and hopefully repair an external hdd. I hooked it up to our work PC to see if it would recognize it (our main computer stopped seeing it and further review discovered that the file system had been changed, somehow, to RAW format...?) and CHKDSK was having some permission/usage issue with a 3rd party app, or some ridiculous thing like that, so I restarted the work computer in safe mode. Now the monitor on the work PC won't turn on. I ensured that the monitor, cables, connections are all working by swapping out the SSD with an HDD from an identical computer and it all came on, booted, etc., no problem.

I don't know how the different drives affect the turning on of the monitor...computers are still insane to me after thirty years of using them...this just happened to be the one thing of 5000 things I tried to do that finally got the monitor to detect a signal. My only idea is that something is not loading in safe mode to activate the displayport.

I pulled the CMOS battery for a few and then put it back in. Now I can hear the computer (an HP 8300 Elite) beep once on startup...er, when I press the power button. It had not done this at any previous time that I can remember.

I took the SSD out and hooked it up to another computer to run some diagnostics with TestDisk and the MBR, partitions, sectors, all check out. Though it could still be one of those things I suppose, I was just going through some tutorials that others had posted online and most of the test results were a little too Einsteinian for me to comprehend.

Here's the other thing the PC does. When I unplug it, it beeps four times. I don't recall ever having this or any other computer ever exhibit that behavior. But yeah. I unplug the computer (to open it up and tweak with the next possible solution!) and whenever I do, it beeps four times. AFTER I unplug it.

I've reseated the RAM. Reset the BIOS via CMOS battery (I think, but who knows). I've tried booting the computer with a W10 install disc and several bootable repair discs. Sometimes it looks like the CD drive is active. Sometimes it just spins up for a second and then stops. I can't even see anything to get to the boot menu.

When I press the power button, the computer seems to power down immediately.

I'm thinking...that perhaps if it IS the result of being stuck in safe mode, and I have access to the drive by hooking it up to another computer, that there's maybe a way to edit the registry or whatever to disable safe mode? Like, say, via Notepad or whatnot...? I'm pretty lost now.

I hope that this info makes some sense to someone and I can get some help before I lose what little hair I have left! Thanks in advance!

 

[Aeacus]

You can start from here: BIOS beep codes descriptions,
link: https://support.hp.com/bg-en/document/c02222922

Also, is your monitor plugged to the dedicated GPU or directly to MoBo?

As far as removing CMOS battery goes, that only helps if you messed up in BIOS by changing some values which resulted the PC to seize normal operation. Removing CMOS resets the BIOS settings back to the factory default. Since there wasn't nothing wrong within BIOS, removing CMOS could've messed the system up some more if the BIOS values were set for PC's optimal working conditions. But that's just one possibility and i don't think it caused any harm. Especially since you can boot back to BIOS just fine.

 

[ultranothing]

I did refer to the HP site regarding beep codes. One short beep apparently means "Legacy floppy drive or CD/DVD drive not detected" which I don't think is what it's trying to tell me since the CD drive both powers on and seeks, according to lights and sounds.

The monitor is connected via displayport to onboard graphics.

I'm not sure if I'm able to boot back into BIOS, since the screen is black. Something is going on behind the scenes but I can't see what it is.

 

[Aeacus]

Just because ODD works and seeks the disc doesn't mean it's actually working. Your ODD could be bad as well. Here, i'd ask; how old your ODD is, when was the last time it was used and how frequently it has been used during it's time?

Throughout of my 20+ years with PCs, ODDs are the ones that die on me the fastest. I've replaced 6x ODDs, since at one point, they refused to read any of my discs, despite the "seek" sound they made when the disc was in. 2nd highest failure rate component i've had is HDD, especially WD Blue 500GB. Two of these have died on me.

You can try with 2nd monitor and in another monitor port your MoBo has to rule out monitor and MoBo monitor ports as a possible issue.

If you don't get any image showing your screen then it could be either: bad MoBo, bad CPU and/or bad RAM.
Testing RAM is easy, just reseat it into different slot and also use 1x DIMM at a time. You can even use 2nd RAM stick which is known to work, e.g from another system. Just don't mix different frequency and timing RAM sticks. Testing CPU requires 2nd working system from where to test CPU and testing MoBo needs 2nd, working and correct socket CPU.

 

[ultranothing]

The beep went away. Which is great!

On to another issue...

I think I'm almost there! Remember how I said that when I put a different hard drive into the computer (from an identical machine) that everything worked normally? Well I had an idea to hook up that drive (HDD) to my main PC and create an image file, and then re-image the original drive (SSD) with that image. The thought being that since the other drive worked, then an exact copy of it should also work in the same way.

The problem I'm now running into is that the HDD is a 1tb drive and the SSD is only a 256gb. There's only actually around 30gb of actual data on the HDD but the image is trying to migrate all of the 900+gb of unused space onto the SSD, so the software (Macrium Reflect) will not re-image the SSD due to insufficient space. Always something!

Is there a way to create an image of the HDD with only the data that's present and not all of the free space? Could I perhaps simply create a folder on my main PC, copy and paste everything from the HDD and then drag/drop it over to the SSD, as a workaround? Or would I be missing important hidden/system files...?

 

[Aeacus]

Copy/paste doesn't create the boot sector on a drive, so, your copy/paste method won't work.

As far as cloning the drive goes, there are other, better, software to do the job. I've used Acronis True Image (due to my Kingston SSD) and Samsung Data Migration (due to my Samsung SSDs). Both programs take the actual used space into calculation while leaving the free space out of the loop. Thanks to my Acronis True Image, i was able to clone my WinXP Pro SP2 from WD Blue 1TB to Kingston HyperX 3K 240GB SSD,
Acronis: https://www.acronis.com/en-us/personal/computer-backup/
Samsung: https://www.samsung.com/semiconductor/minisite/ssd/download/tools/

Note 01: for some reason, Acronis doesn't want to play ball when the target (end) drive is Samsung SSD. While data is copied just fine, the drive won't boot. Hence the reason why i used Samsung Data Migration.
Note 02: you can get 30-day free trial of Acronis if you register first. I got my free copy of Acronis due to Kingston SSD since all Kingston SSDs have Acronis included on a CD.

Or if you don't want to use the programs above, create a partition on your HDD that is smaller than your SSD e.g 100GB total. Put the OS on that small partition and your Macrium Reflect should enable you to clone the drive on SSD just fine. Also, don't select the whole drive cloning, just take that partition.