BSOD Config List Failed

Found this on the web:  Error Msg Stop:  0x00000073(parameter list) Config List Failed.  It appears you have a registry problem.  Before you ask, I know it says Windows 2000 but I also found posts on Tom's Hardware that indicates the error also occurs in Windows XP.  The cause seems to be a corrupted registry and the recommendation as you can see in this article is a repair install.  When successful, the data on the drive remains intact, but if you don't have a suitable Windows XP installation CD or the repair fails, your still stuck.

If the data is that critical I would recommend purchasing a new drive for your machine and installing your operating system and applications on that.  You can then acquire a USB drive shell, mount the old drive in it, and extracting the data to the new drive in it.

I ordered an original XP CD to try this and Ill report back for others whether or not it worked.

Ok I figured out how to not boot in media direct but it wont except the install cd they sent me. I accidently tried a windows 98 cd and it went through the process when I went to f12 and booted through CD but it said wrong machine. I cant even get to that with the XP install cd.

I'm afraid you will need to explain what you mean by stating that it will not accept the install CD.  When you boot properly from the Windows XP installation disk you should get the choices of installing a fresh copy of the operating system, repairing the existing operating system, or quitting.  What messages do you see on the screen as you attempt to boot?

Another thing I was wondering is what disk did they send you?  If your computer was delivered with Media Direct you should have either a DVD that contains Media Direct and Windows XP, or separate CDs for the Media Direct and Windows XP.  If you cannot perform a repair install using the Windows XP installation disk, and are therefore forced to do a complete install, you must decide if you want to keep Media Direct.  If you do, you must begin with the Media Direct portion of the installation so that the disk can be properly partitioned prior to installing the operating system.

Ok I got the disc and I tried running the recovery install or even a clean install but it only boots in dell media direct everytime and I cant get it to stop. I have it set to boot through the CD first.

Heres what I don't understand. When I accidently used a windows 98 disk to try and recover it went through the proper motions of giving me the options to reinstall it. Of course I received a message saying wrong machine. But when I used this dvd they sent me that says (Reinstallation DVD Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Version 2005 with Update Rollup 2), it just seems to bypass it and run a normal startup which leads to a  blue screen thats says "unmountable boot drive". I never get the options to do a recovery or a repair like it doesnt even read the disk.

They also sent a me a drivers disk and an applications disk. The applications disk doesnt do anything and the driver disk only allows me to run a series of tests.

This is so frustrating =(

Usually when you get an indication that the DVD is not booting as you describe, it isn't.  Getting a message of unmountable boot drive only makes sense if the disk the computer is trying to boot from doesn't have the appropriate boot code, or is unreadable.  Do you see this message if you remove the DVD from the drive and just try to boot from the hard drive?  Is there any possibility that the optical drive is unable to read DVDs?  What procedure are you using to attempt the boot, F12, or placing the optical drive first in the boot order in system setup?

Its Unmountable Boot Volume I mean. And it says that now whether I have the disk in or not. I know it its always been able to play DVD's in the past. I've tried two methods for booting. I made sure the CD drive is first i the boot sequence and Ive tried rebooting after that and doing it directly through F12 by choose the CD DVD option from the menu. Both fail to read the disc and boot normally to the BSOD.

Do you have a second computer with a DVD drive on which you could try booting the DVD?  This problem can result either from the DVD drive being faulty or the DVD itself being bad.  If you don't have another machine to try, remove the hard drive from your laptop and try booting the DVD just to see if it will boot at all.  If the disk will boot somewhere you will at least know that the disk is ok.

If you can verify the disk, try removing the laptop battery and leaving its A/C adapter unplugged while you press the power on button for about 15 seconds.  This action will reset some things in the CMOS and might allow you to boot from the disk.

I tried the DVD in another computer and it worked.

I tired taking out the battery and unplugging the AC Adapter and pressing the power button. Did I read that right because I was just pressing power with nothing happening as theres no power going to my laptop. I tried rebooting again with the same result as the previous attempts.

Yes; power buttons aren't really power buttons anymore.  Instead, the switches are used to supply a signal to the main board telling it to allow power to be supplied to the rest of the circuits.  Pressing it while there is no power available allows certain storage elements to discharge.

Have you tried removing the hard drive so that only the DVD drive is available?  If it doesn't boot with no other device available there is a problem with the drive itself.

EDIT:  One additional thing to try before deciding the DVD drive needs to be replaced is to run diagnostics on the hard drive.  Reason for this is that most E1705 computers use parallel IDE/ATA drives and have only one channel.  Since the hard drive is the master in this configuration and the DVD/CD drive the slave, the DVD/CD drive may not work properly if there is something wrong with the hard drive.  If the hard drive is the original drive, and is at least partially working, you should be able to tap F12 during the self test after you restart the computer and choose diagnostics from the one time boot menu.  After the quick test gets run, see if there is an option to configure specific tests and run the tests for the hard drive.  There should also be a test for the DVD/CD drive but you will need to have a disk in the drive for that one to work.

Now that I think about it the drive stop playing DVD's awhile ago. I just didnt pay attention because I didnt need it for that. It still plays a regular CD though. Any idea on why that is?

And thanks for helping. Im so poor and cant afford these fees for technical service they want to charge me. 

The DVD/CD combo drives have separate lasers for CD and DVD because the two formats use different wavelengths for their tracks.  DVDs must pack a lot more data into the tracks so the wavelength must be shorter so the bits don't get skipped over.  Because of this it is quite possible for a drive to lose its capability to read DVDs even though CDs are played just fine.

And you are very welcome.

Do you know of any tricks on how I can fix the CD DVD drive before I have to take it to a technician?

If the problem is the laser, the only way to fix it is to replace the drive.  As the problem occurs before Windows loads I can't think of any software fix you could try.

The support page for your computer has a firmware update for a Sony DDU810A Slim DVD ROM drive, but you must have exactly that model for the update to work.  The description of the update says nothing about correcting the problem you have, so it probably isn't relevant anyway.