The first floppy should be a DOS bootable floppy. You may have to go into your BIOS setup program and change the boot order so that the system will boot from the floppy drive first.

Steve

Hi again...

I was able to download the diagnostics and put them on a floppy. How do I run it in DOS? I have XP on the machine.

Thanks!
Tartallini wrote:
- Hi,
-
- I have a Dell 8100 desktop that is just off of its 1
- year warranty. It is a P4 1.3, 40GB, 256 PC800,
- running XP (upgraded from ME).
-
- Last week it completely shutdown unexpectedly and
- would open to a black screen, then ask for my
- password (I have none on the machine) and the
- mouse/keyboard were inopperable. I reformatted and
- reinstalled XP.
-
- Since that time I have received a blue screen upon
- shutdown with a message to contact the vendor:
- Memory Parity Error.
-
- This has happened about 30% of the time upon
- shutdown, and although the system appears to go
- through it's proper shutdown procedure, it hangs
- with this blue screen and doesn't completely power
- down. I have to then do it manually. The system
- starts up properly.
-
- I had noticed problems with programs not starting
- quickly and hanging, so I tried to reseat all of the
- memory modules. It seemed to help the performance
- issues with programs, but the error message still
- persists.
-
- I am also having problems downloading and running
- the 32bit diagnostics.
-
- Should I just get some new memory for it, or could
- there be other hardware issues?
-
- Thank you. Any help or guidance would be
- appreciated.
-
- Andrea
-
- Tartallini
- svc tag#: FJGYR01