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May 3rd, 2010 00:00
Dell Dimension 3100 Problem
My Dell Dimension 3100 has error message, saying that my BootMGR is compressed, press CTRL+ALT+DELTE, but when I press it, all that happens is a restart, and the back to the error message and to press the same buttons. The only difference that I did was upgrade to windows 7, and upgraded to 2 GB Ram. I also heard of the pressing CTRL+F11 method when there is a blue loading bar on the DELL screen, but when I do that, it doesn't boot up the system restore option. I tried holding CTRL+F11, nothing happens, holding CTRL and tapping F11 continously, but it doesn't show the system restore option. I also tried booting from the Windows Vista CD, but it doesn't have an option where it says to press a certain key to boot from CD. The last thing I did before this error message appeared, was compress my hard drive. Nothing happened at the moment, but when I logged off and restarted my computer, that error message popped up. By the way, when I bought my Dell Dimension 3100, it never came with a system recovery disc or any disc if I remember correctly. I bought this computer about.......2 years ago.
Help would be greatly appreciated!!!
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RobinBredin
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May 3rd, 2010 04:00
Hi wazplm123, If your system shipped with Vista, then its F8 when you see the dell splash screen when you first start your system, that will take your system back to factory state.. But, if you upgraded from Vista to win 7, try putting in your Win 7 dvd, reboot the system, then select Repair your computer, then take the first option to repair your MBR.
wazplm123
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May 3rd, 2010 13:00
When I bought my Dell Computer, it came with Windows XP, and not Vista, I just recently upgraded to it. I have 2 windows vista discs, and 1 of them is Home Premium and the other is Windows Ultimate. I upgraded to Windows Vista Home Premium, then Windows Vista Ultimate. Does it matter if I put in windows vista Home Premium, or Windows Vista Ultimate to system restore it?
By the way, I tried pressing F8, CTRL+F8, F12 but it leads to the system information, where I get to change the amount of power consumption and check my computers specs, I also tried CTRL+F12. None of these worked to bring me to the system restore.
shesagordie
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May 3rd, 2010 14:00
wazplm123
You need to use the disc, of the version that's currently installed.
Bev.
wazplm123
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May 3rd, 2010 16:00
I found my discs, but when I put my Windows Vista Ultimate inside the computer, it doesn't give me a option to run through my CD, I get an error saying No Boot Device is available with strike F1 to retry reboot and F2 for setup utility. My Boot sequence in the setup utility is 1. for Onboard or USB CD-Rom Drive.
Unless you have a way to fix BootMGR is compressed press CTRL+ALT+DELTE, my only resort is to try to system restore =/
RoHe
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May 3rd, 2010 18:00
Since you're talking about Ctrl-F11, I presume you mean PC Restore rather than System Restore...
Having upgraded from XP to Vista, and then to Vista U and then Win 7, you've likely obliterated access to PC Restore, even if the orginial PC Restore partition still exists on the hard drive. And if you could access the PC Retore partition, it would reinstall XP, not Vista, and all your personal files will be lost forever.
You may have to install this drive as a secondary drive in another PC or install it in an external USB case and connect it to another PC via USB. If you do that, you might be able to unccompress the drive and then put it back into the 3100 and have it bootable again.
If all your files are backed up on external media, it might be easier just to reformat and reinstall Vista all over again.
Ron
wazplm123
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May 3rd, 2010 20:00
So, you are trying to say that I have to take out my hard drive, plug it into a working desktop, and decompress it there? If so, do I need to install drivers and stuff for my hard drive, or is it plug and play?
RoHe
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May 4th, 2010 10:00
Assuming the other PC supports the right drive type (IDE or SATA) as an internal drive, you could termporally install it as an internal drive in a different PC and try to uncompress it. If you put it into an external housing that supports the right drive type and has USB output, you could plug it into another system via USB without having to open that other PC. You boot from the other PC's hard drive so you shouldn't need to install any drivers.
There are commands to uncompress files which can be run from the Recovery Console if you can boot the 3100 from your XP CD. But I don't believe they can be run as a batch on an entire drive. And if they can't be run as a batch, you'll need to know the exact path to the bootmgr file on the hard drive in order to uncompress it. Vista puts bootmgr in the D: partition, but since I don't use Vista, I can't tell you what folder it might be in. And once you uncompress that file, the system may need other files uncompressed, so you could end up spending lots of time doing this file by file...
There's also a method to create a new bootmgr file after booting from the Vista DVD and going to the command prompt. But I don't know what will happen if you do that on a drive that's been compressed, eg will the newly created bootmgr be compressed too, or not ?? And, then what other files will you need to uncompress to get the system to boot..??
Unless somebody's got a better idea...it might be time to reformat the drive and do a clean install. All files on the hard drive will be lost... :emotion-9:
Ron