Locked out trying to reinstall Win XP

First, if you have anything on the drive that you need to keep you should find a way to save it to alternate media.  If you proceed with the reformatting you will lose everything on that particular hard drive.

You should also know that the malware forum has some pretty competent folks that frequent it.  If you would like to try to clean the computer instead of reformatting it you might want to try that forum first.

From your description, you either are not booting from the disk or you are trying to repair the OS.  You cannot repair the OS on your hard drive if you have installed a service pack that is later than the version you have on your installation CD.  In order to continue with the repair you would need to acquire an installation CD that has at least the same service pack as you are running on the hard drive, or make an installation CD using the Windows slipstream procedure.

If you still wish to start over and format the drive, you should first make certain you have the device drivers for the computer handy, and a CD that contains the service pack you wish to upgrade to (unless the installation CD already has it).  You should have the device drivers on the Dell Resource CD that you should have received with your computer, but you may also download them from here:  Dimension 8300 Drivers.  If you would like to update to Service Pack 2, I suggest you download this file and burn it to a CD:  Service Pack 2 Update.  You may do the same for Service Pack 3 if you prefer:  Service Pack 3 Update.  If you have any applications that require a product code as a condition of installation, make certain that you have that code either on a certificate with the packaging of the disk, or by using a utility such as Belarc to determine the codes on your hard drive.

To boot from your installation disk, do one of the following:  1.  Place the disk in the optical drive; if your disk is a DVD, the drive will need to be a DVD capable drive, and if it is an IDE drive, it must be the master drive.  Restart the computer, press and release F12 during the Dell start-up screen to get the one time boot menu.  When the menu appears, select the appropriate optical drive as the boot device by typing the number of your selection and hitting the Return key.  You may get a message to strike any key in order to boot from CD.  If you do, press a key and allow the disk to boot.  Follow the onscreen directions to delete the existing NTFS partition ( your C drive) and install Windows in the unallocated space resulting from the deletion of the partition.  2.  Restart the computer, press F2 during the Dell start-up screen to get to setup, navigate to the Boot Order menu, and set the optical drive to number 1 in the boot order.  Place the installation disk in the drive, escape out of setup saving changes, and allow the boot to proceed.  Follow the onscreen directions as previously described.

Once Windows has been installed, you need to install the drivers.  Begin with the Intel Chipset driver, followed by the Video, Sound, Network (Ethernet port), and Modem drivers in that order.  After the drivers have been installed, update Windows to the service pack of your choice.  Follow that with a good anti-virus program, and if you have decided to use your own firewall software, remember to turn the default Windows firewall off.  When you have your anti-virus software up and running, connect to the Internet to update first your anti-virus definitions and then load whatever Windows updates you need.  Install your applications. 

I've tried procedures for reinstalling OS (disk that came with computer), however a message appears that "current OS is newer version than that on CD and can't proceed".

As Jack suggests... you won't get that error message, if you boot from the OS disc.

You should also have received a few other discs with your Dell system - including important ones such as the Media Direct disc (must be installed before the OS), and one with the chipset drivers etc on it?

If you don't have those, it's no big deal, because oyu can download Media Direct and all the drivers off the Dell website.

But you should 'Request Backup Discs' anyway.

Other than that... follow Jack's clear and comprehensive advice for reinstalling the OS/drivers (very impressive that reply Jack :emotion-21:) :emotion-5:

Looks like I need to make a SlipStream CD.  My original OS CD is XP.  Searching for information, it looks like I need to download "ISOBuster".  Any suggestions on the SlipStream procedure?

Thanks.

There are likely a number of guides for slipstreaming; one that was recommended by a fellow forum member is this one:  Slipstreaming SATA Drivers.  The SATA drivers you will need are here:  Dimension 8300 SATA.  You will need to download the SATA driver file to its own folder, and then double click it to extract the files.  I've never had to install this particular one, but if it is similar to others, it should give you the option to choose a folder for the extracted files.  If you don't choose one, it will go to C:\Dell\Drivers\BR60785.  The folder holding the extracted files is the one you will direct nLite to get the SATA .INF file from.

I'm using Windows XP Media Center Edition.  From this Microsoft Support Article http://support.microsoft.com/kb/894947 "Integrating a service pack is not supported in Windows Media Center Edition."

If I put the drive into a dual boot computer running Windows 2000, can I reformat the drive through Win2000?

Apologies for not noticing precisely what you are trying to do when I read your earlier post.

You should not need to slipstream anything.  If the DVD you are using for Media Center is from Dell you should already have the necessary disk drivers.  I assumed that you were attempting to slipstream SATA drivers into an installation disk.

Have you tried using one of the procedures I mentioned for booting from the disk?  You must boot from the Media Center DVD using one of the procedures to boot the disk that I described in my first post to you.  Once you have booted from the disk you should then follow the directions on the screen to set up Media Center and install Windows XP.  Assuming that you get the option to do so, you will need to format the C (NTFS) partition to be sure you are setting up a fresh installation.

If you install the drive as a secondary, or slave drive, into a second computer that is running Windows 2000, I believe you should be able to delete partitions and reformat the drive.

I've tried Booting from disk, it just doesn't work.  Since SP2 is installed, booting from the original OS disk gives me the message that "current OS is newer version than that on CD and can't proceed".  So I'm locked out of either option - repair or reinstall.  

Trying to format HD in DOS, I get an "access denied" message.  Entering DOS puts me into "Documents and Settings" for specific user.  Access is denied to even get to main C drive.  Encountering blank screens, I've lost capability to create / change privileges of User Accounts through Control Panel.  Media Center Edition doesn't allow for slipsteaming Service Packs, so I can't created a disk that will work once SP is installed.  That's when I thought of formatting it as a slave drive on Win2000 computer.

Question:

In researching problem, I've noticed that newer Dell computers have an alternative to reinstallation:

"Dell™ PC Restore by Symantec (for Microsoft Windows XP) and Dell Factory Image Restore (for Microsoft Windows Vista) restore your computer software to the original state in which it was shipped to you from Dell."

In starting from scratch, is it possible to create a similar mirror drive?  Do I use Symantec's Ghost?  I'm not familiar with this, but would like to avoid this problem in future.

Thanks again for your help.

Perhaps you are choosing the incorrect option.  The message you are reporting only occurs if you are attempting to perform a Repair installation, or perhaps an upgrade over an existing copy of Windows.  You need to re-examine your procedure.  When the disk is booted you should be directing it to set up Windows.  There should be a screen that allows you to delete partitions, and when you get to that, you should be deleting the existing C (NTFS) partition that contains the operating system before continuing.  In this situation you cannot get the message you report since you will be wiping out the original installation.

The typical reason for getting this message on a Repair Installation is that you have applied a service pack that is later than the one included on your disk.  If the copy of Windows on your CD has service pack 1 or 2, but you have updated to service pack 3 on your hard drive, you cannot repair the version of Windows on your hard drive with your DVD/CD.  You must therefore proceed to set up Windows and delete the existing partition before you can continue.

So far as mirroring, your computer would need to support RAID 1 in order to do that, and I can find no information that suggest that the Dimension 8300 will support a RAID of any kind.