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May 9th, 2005 23:00
Win 98 broke my BIOS?
I have Dell Latitude CPI-A 400XT
(service tag VD885), with 128 MB RAM.
I tried to install Windows 98 on it and then decided to move to Windows XP.
After installing Win98 I started to get an avalanche of errors. Most of them start with:
“Play & Plug Configuration Error” messages. However, I also get stop messages (this is on Windows XP now) 8E most often. Also I get other stop messages, memory management errors etc. All on Windows XP Professional I installed later on.
On some occasions Windows XP would boot but would crush after just few minutes of work. Explorer would crush in those cases or I would get a blue screen with some error related to file missing etc.
When I try to reinstall Windows I get messages related to missing files on the CD. I know that the CD is fine and the messages related to a different file/error each time I try to boot the computer or to reinstall the OS.
I reformatted the drive and installed Windows XP Pro. again.
When I turned the laptop off for the night, the following morning I was getting the same error messages and the computer is broken again.
The most reproducible behaviour is the recurrence of the errors after the computer is left switched off for some longer duration of time. Thus, whenever I fix it (like for example re-install the OS on the freshly formatted drive) the computer works fine till I leave it for a number of hours off. (It works fine if I just reboot it after the fresh installation, but if it is switched off for the night the next morning it is broken completely, and it shows the above erratic behaviour or would not boot at all).
I removed the battery but it makes no difference. I upgraded to a newer BIOS from A14 to A15. Again it did not make any difference. I have re-set the CMOS by disconnecting from the internal battery. Again this made no difference.
At most that I am able to achieve is to install the OS with some apps. Then check that the computer works fine and the next day it is completely broken by itself.
I also ran the diagnostic tools provided by Dell in that laptop. I have chosen ‘All Tests’ and all were reporting a very much healthy computer. The only strange message was an indication with drive B (which is not existent and disabled in BIOS too). The diagnostic tool would say that there was a partition error on that drive. This is very strange as there is no such drive in that laptop.
leduke30
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4K Posts
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May 10th, 2005 00:00
ms11
2 Posts
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May 10th, 2005 01:00
I deleted the old partitions and created new ones that were different than the original.
I formatted the drive with NTFS so there would be no possibility of transferring any of the original settings/files to the new installation.
I installed Win-XP on that new partition. After the installation it seemed to work just fine.
I shut down the computer, placed it in a bag for the night and restarted next day.
As described in my original message the original problems came back and the laptop is broken. The new installation of XP (if I can get to it through the start-up) crashes at any moment with complains about the corrupted or missing files. I had the hard drive checked by myself and by the shop where I bought it and both tests give it a clean bill. But in fact the files get broken down if I use the laptop for few minutes. (It can not be the hard drive by itself as it has been checked and passed)