Dell Dimension E520 Desktop - Re-installing Windows XP Operating System

Just as a reminder, you need to boot from the Windows installation disk in order to perform an installation.  On the E520, you do this either by setting the DVD/CD ROM drive first in the boot order, or by pressing F12 during the self test when starting the machine and selecting the optical drive as the boot device.  The disk must already be in the optical drive for this to work properly.

Which service pack do you have on the Windows XP installation CD?  The E520 requires a disk having at least Service Pack 2 in order to work with the PCI-e video.  If you are using the disk supplied with the computer, you should meet that requirement.

The E520 uses SATA drives.  The SATA controller is set by default to RAID On, which turns on the AHCI mode if no RAID is present.  Your installation disk must have a driver for the AHCI or the installation usually fails with a 0x0000007B, hard drive not found.  My E520 came with a disk having this driver, so you most likely have one as well.  You need to be sure you are using the disk that came with the computer for this to be true.  Otherwise, you will need to have an internal floppy drive to use the F6 procedure to install the driver on start-up, or you can slipstream the driver into a new installation disk that you make using the files from your installation CD and the SATA driver files.  If none of this works for you, you can also change the SATA controller mode to RAID Autodetect/ATA which allows installation to proceed using the older IDE mass storage driver.

Guidance from Dell on installing Windows can be found here:  How to Restore or Reinstall Microsoft Windows on a Dell Computer.

EDIT:  Incidentally, support for Windows XP will end in March this year.  No security updates will be available after that month.  You may wish to consider switching to Windows 7 or Windows 8.  I would suggest Windows 7 since that OS most closely approximates Windows XP in its user interface.  The E520 will certainly be compatible with the 32 bit version, and is probably compatible with the 64 bit version.  You should run the Windows Upgrade Advisor to see if there are programs or devices on your particular configuration that might cause trouble.

Incidentally, support for Windows XP will end in March this year.  No security updates will be available after that month.  You may wish to consider switching to Windows 7 or Windows 8.  I would suggest Windows 7 since that OS most closely approximates Windows XP in its user interface.  The E520 will certainly be compatible with the 32 bit version, and is probably compatible with the 64 bit version.

The core components are compatible with Windows 7 x64, but some of the peripherals may not be. As an example, I installed x64 on a 5150 last year, and there was no Windows 7 driver available for the PCI modem, not that the owner used it anyways. (Everything else, including the Sigmatel audio and x1300 video card, had drivers and all the OEM applications, including MS Office 2003, installed and activated.)

As mentioned Windows XP reaches End of Life so it is a waste of time installing an obsolete OS. It will only lead to problems in particular if you network it. It is highly suspected updates for Windows Vista, 7 and 8.1 will be reverse engineered to exploit XP when Microsoft stop updating it in April.

For more details about the demise of Windows XP see here:

• End of Life – April 2014 (Microsoft)
• White Paper Mitigating Risk: Why Sticking with Windows XP is a Bad Idea. (IDC Analyze the Future)

For best results run full F12 preboot system diagnostics see my Windows Reinstallation Guide page 290.

If all passes then follow A Clean Install of Windows 7/8.1.

My Windows Reinstallation Guide may be found here: http://dellwindowsreinstallationguide.com/

Dell do not have Windows 7 64 Bit drivers listed but I do here:

http://dellwindowsreinstallationguide.com/driver-sets/dimension-desktops/dimension-e520-windows-7-64-bit/

Note SSDs have finally became quite affordable I would recommend getting a M500 120 GB SSD or superior and then installing Windows 7/8.1 64 Bit on it:

http://www.crucial.com/upgrade/Dell-memory/Dimension+%2F+Dimension+XPS/Dimension+E520-upgrades.html

The Windows Reinstallation Guide will instruct you on installing Windows 7 or 8.1 and give you options to evaluate Windows 7 and 8.1.

Thank you to all for your help and comments

I would like to get the desktop working - not for the purposes of networking or Internet access - but my son uses it for document preparation (school work) and to watch and record TV programmes. We installed a TV card a few years ago which works very successfully but will not work with Linux

Regards

David

Did you run the system diagnostics like I mentioned above?