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DELL 8300 will not start up again because,
I had a 80gb drive in it, original drive, and put Ubuntu running alongside of it. I discovered that I did not have the room to run both so went and deleted the Ubunt. I had a hard drive that head 40gb only with the rest not available. I tried and turned it in to NTFS but still would not combine. I even tried partition majic with no results.
Well I took my extra 500gb drive out and now it will not boot into the XP that was there. I put the drive back in and now it says hardware configuration problem.
I was willing to make the whole drive Ubuntu but still cannot do that.
I am on my newer computer that is Windows 7 and Ubuntu and have no problems but the 8300 is still a good box and I could put either on and still use it.
I am wondering if I even have the drives in the right spots. It is maddening so any ideas will be welcome and thank you for reading and a Merry Christmas and a Happy new year to all.
osprey4
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December 23rd, 2014 10:00
Hi John,
Merry Christmas!
I assume this is a Dimension 8300. If I understand correctly, you have XP installed on about 40GB of the 80GB hard drive, and that the system will not boot without the 500GB drive installed. It sounds as though the boot loader may be on the other drive, maybe? I think if you boot to your XP installation disc, you could probably repair the boot loader on the 80GB drive and have the system up and running.
The hardware configuration error could be something in the BIOS. Did you make any changes?
John J Kushner
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December 23rd, 2014 16:00
TY will give that a try n get back as soon as I can.
John J Kushner
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December 25th, 2014 14:00
Merry Christmas and now on to the Dimension 8300. I reinstalled XP and it took a while but it is in. Now it is reading that it is drive D and my 500GB is C Drive. I installed Partition Majic to see what I could do and it said that the D drive was bad. I changed it to NTFS.and have yet to look as I know it is bad but the drive is solid and has worked like a charm since I got it. I tried swapping drives and the letters did not change either. It reads that it is a 80GB drive but when it boots up and look at the properties it is showing 40GB so I am thinking that Linux has me screwed up somewhere. Ideas still welcome and thanks.John
osprey4
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December 25th, 2014 16:00
Hi John,
Merry Christmas!
Good, so you've got XP on the 500GB drive. What do you see for the 80GB drive in disk management? Any unused space showing there?
John J Kushner
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December 26th, 2014 12:00
NO it is on the 80GB drive that still reads 40GB but now it is D Drive and C Drive is my spare drive I keep things on. Reversed..Ok I am now having a problem when I start up the computer it is slow and also has me pick between two start ups. Both XP Professional. Why? and how do I get it to stop. I tried licking on both but it takes me to the newly installed XP I just did. Arghhhhhhhhhhhh!!
I have updated it to SP3 and all is running well but I cannot get the whole drive to read. I tried Disk Management and no luck and I went back in to Partition Majic and it still reads the 80gb drive as bad but it is not because when it boots to it it runs fine.Helpppp lol Merry Christmas all right :)
osprey4
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December 26th, 2014 13:00
Ok, here's what I would do. Boot to your XP disc and reinstall again. But this time, delete all partitions on the drive before you install. That way, you'll get the entire 80GB back for the OS. And you won't have two installations of XP on the drive, which is what you've got now.
John J Kushner
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December 26th, 2014 17:00
Is that why the Drives are labeled wrong? Will redo it again n get back when I get the chance n ty
osprey4
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December 27th, 2014 03:00
Yes, that's why. I would actually disconnect the 500GB drive when you reinstall. That's the sure fire method to make sure the drive letter assignments are conventional.
John J Kushner
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December 27th, 2014 06:00
Sounds like a good Plan . :P OK this is where the 8300 confuses me. The drive bay if you remember hjas the green slides you attach to the drives. Now do I put the 80GB in the top or bottom of the drive bay. I know sounds silly but that is the part confusing.
osprey4
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December 27th, 2014 08:00
If these are IDE drives, they only fit a certain way. The 80GB boot drive must be connected to the end of the ribbon cable. Not sure if that requires it to be on the top or bottom.
John J Kushner
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January 18th, 2015 14:00
NO I now have 3 copies of XP on the drive and still it only reads like 37GB instead of the 80??
rdunnill
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January 18th, 2015 15:00
Is this a pre-SP1 version of XP?
John J Kushner
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January 18th, 2015 16:00
yes but I own 5 DELLs so I have sp 2 and sp3 ??