You'll need Windows XP SP2 to support a PCI-Express graphics card.

If you are using only PCI-Express graphics card, the only choice is to boot from the complete edition of Windows XP SP2.

Make a slipstreamed XPSP2 installation CD

http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/windowsxp_sp2_slipstream.asp

 

Th XP SP2 CD should boot up.  You do have the boot order in the BIOS set to CDROM before hard drive?

Well it is looking like a hardware problem right enough.

 

1. Does the CDROM drive work properly?  Try cleaning it and the CD

2. Check the RAM
If you have more than one stick of RAM (256MB or more) swap them over or take one out and try again with only stick #1. If it does not help or makes things worse swap the sticks and try again with only stick #2. This will identify if you have a bad stick.              

OR You can put either of these free programs on a floppy and test the RAM
memtest86            http://www.memtest86.com/

Windows Memory Diagnostic      http://oca.microsoft.com/en/windiag.asp

Memtest on CD http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/256/mirrors.php

 

OR Use your CD burner to write it onto a CD as an ISO image
 http://www.memtest.org/download/1.70...6+-1.70.iso.gz

 

OR Run the Dell Diagnostics
http://docs.us.dell.com/support/edocs/software/DIAGS/EN/running.htm#starting_the_dell_diagnostics

 

http://support.dell.com/support/topics/global.aspx/support/dsn/en/document?c=us&dl=false&l=en&s=gen&docid=126A722713F6D0D0E0401E0A55174AE6&doclang=en&cs

To access them press F12 when you see the dell logo screen

Thanks for the help. I burned XP SP2 to disc, booted off it and it seemed OK. It got to the same point and BSODed, but this time with a new error.

 

SESSION3_INITIALIZATION_FAILED.

 

STOP: 0X0000006F (0X00000020, 0X00000000, 0X00000000, 0X00000000

 

I wish I hadn't started :\

Freakstorm,

 

The last time I ran into a problem like this the only thing that worked was to download the XP SATA driver executable from www.support.dell.com, extract it to a folder and then use nLite to integrate the driver into an XP SP2 CD. 

 

Basically, you copy the entire XP SP2 CD to a folder such as C:\XPSP2, start nLite and integrate the SATA folder with the XP SP2, you then create an ISO image of the XP XP2 with the SATA driver(s) integrated and burn that ISO to a CD-R.  Use the newly created XP SP2 CD-R to boot the Vostro and install XP.  Worked for me.

 

nLite is available here:   http://www.nliteos.com/download.html  A guide on how to use it is here:  http://www.nliteos.com/guide/

 

Hope this info helps you get XP installed on your Vostro.

 

Tony

You are welcome :smileyhappy:

 

The easiest of all hardware problems to fix :smileyhappy:

Hi,

Thanks for all the help. It must have been a dodgy CD. I was able to reburn a XP SP2 disc and it worked. I tried adding the drivers with Nlite but everytime I went to create the ISO it would crash :(

XP is far superior to Vista.

Freakstorm,

 

Thanks for posting back.  Doing so helps everyone searching through the posts on the DCF for an answer to a problem such as yours.

 

Good luck!

 

Tony