Re: OS wont boot

On Apr 15, 5:06 am, "Bill" <b...@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
"UPNDOWN" <ftw5shopp...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message

news:1176608132.402303.241000@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx





Not sure is this the group for this.

I have a Dell dimension 4600, a couple of years old. Originally it
had Windows XP Home sp1. Upgraded to SP2 2 years ago.

Right after the Dell bios splash screen is done, the screen goes
blank.

Installed the original Windows Home cd from Dell. Changed the startup
in the bios to Cd-rom first. After the splash screen, The CD-rom
starts spinning, I get a message "Setup is looking at your hardware
configurations", and then the screen goes blank, 30 seconds later,
the cd-rom stops spinning and thats it.

I tried to make a bootable cd-rom with
ATW_Windows_XP_SP2_Boot_CD.ISO(got this off the web somewhere). I got
a missing file error.(I suspect that means I have a software problem)

Tried to boot from a blank floppy with just the ntdetect.com, ntldr,
and boot.ini from a similar computer, and same blank screen. (got
this from windows.support webpage.)

Tried an ms-dos startup disk created by a computer with XP
professional, it gives me disk I/O error, on startup.

During the splash screen, if I hit F12, option 8, is a Dell
diagnostics program that runs. Ran all hardware tests(this took a few
hours), they all passed.

It doesn't seem to be hardware failure, but how do I reinstall
Windows.

My next 2 things I'm going to try is:

Downloaded this from windows support:WindowsXP-KB310994-SP2-Home-
BootDisk-ENU.exe
It is designed for computers without a bootable cd-rom.( I don't think
that is my problem)
It requires 6 blank floppies, and it needs to be run on a similar
computer.

I own a copy of Windows XP home, and have my SP2, so I thought I
would try slipstreaming
the two programs to make a new install cd.( Thinking that maybe the
original Dell XP disk wont work because of the upgrade to SP2).

Any input would be appreciated be I embark on this tomorrow. Hate to
waste my time, If someone has a better idea.

TIA

Dont know if this applies to you but I went through a similar situation with
my 8400. Before I could reinstall XP from the Dell restore CD I had to
install drivers for the hard drive and then XP would recognize the C drive
and continue the installation. Although I eventually found the drivers in
the original stuff from Dell I had to download the new ones from their web
site to get it to work. Of course I did all this from my working laptop.

If that works here is another tip. The Dell restore XP CD is SP1( for me)
and I could not just install SP2 for some reason. It kept failing and BSODs

I had to go back and do all the manual updates from the MS web site until
the SP2 offer came up. That was time consuming and a ton of reboots.
Bill- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Replying to all.

The F8 key does nothing.
No new video card. PC is original, though I added 512mb of memory
about 8 months ago, and I updated some video drivers from Dell about 5
months ago(This was to allow games like SIMS 2 to view properly).
This computer is on our family network of 4 computers, it is used by
my daughter, even with firewalls, virus programs, she uses AIM and
other programs that might have let a virus in.

I did find a setting in the bios setup that toggles: Allow OS to
Install. I set that to yes(thought I was on to something). I get a
message that the computer is limited to the original 256mb of memory
and to press F1 to continue. Unfortunately, it didn't get any farther
than before.

I own a usb external harddrive case that I can use to recover data
before reformatting. I gonna try to do that. Then continue on trying
to install the OS.

Thanks for the input

.

Relevant Pages

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