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November 14th, 2004 23:00
BIOS wont enter setup & I cannot reinstall WinXP
I have a Dell Inspiron 1100 laptop.
I was trying to reset my entire system. I first reparition my hard drive, reformatted it, then when I tried to boot up with the XP CD, it wouldn't boot, instead it gave me a "NTLDR is missing" error. I restarted the laptop, and pressed F2 to enter into BIOS settings to change it to boot into the CD rather the hard drive, but it refused my request and didn't even bother to tell me it was even going into setup like it normally does. I tried to press FN+F1, I tried to remove some memory to see if it would ask me to enter setup, none of these worked. I tried pressing F12, F1, DEL, F8, FN+F7, none of these worked either. Currently, it does not have an Operating System, so it is rendered usless until I am able to boot the CD. Is there any suggestions? The last idea I came by was to remove the internal battery and maybe it'll reset the BIOS? If you think that would work, how would I go about doing that? If I cannot get it to work, I'll probably sell it and cash out and let someone else deal with the problem.
Thank you,
Don
I was trying to reset my entire system. I first reparition my hard drive, reformatted it, then when I tried to boot up with the XP CD, it wouldn't boot, instead it gave me a "NTLDR is missing" error. I restarted the laptop, and pressed F2 to enter into BIOS settings to change it to boot into the CD rather the hard drive, but it refused my request and didn't even bother to tell me it was even going into setup like it normally does. I tried to press FN+F1, I tried to remove some memory to see if it would ask me to enter setup, none of these worked. I tried pressing F12, F1, DEL, F8, FN+F7, none of these worked either. Currently, it does not have an Operating System, so it is rendered usless until I am able to boot the CD. Is there any suggestions? The last idea I came by was to remove the internal battery and maybe it'll reset the BIOS? If you think that would work, how would I go about doing that? If I cannot get it to work, I'll probably sell it and cash out and let someone else deal with the problem.
Thank you,
Don
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NemesisDB
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7.9K Posts
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November 15th, 2004 04:00
dbarton221
4 Posts
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November 15th, 2004 09:00
NemesisDB,
Thank you for your reply, I am sure this will help many people as well. I will try this and see how well it'll work. If it works, I hope I have the opportunity to formally thank you.
Your friend,
Don
dj_cool
451 Posts
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November 15th, 2004 11:00
dbarton221
4 Posts
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November 16th, 2004 10:00
The removal of the hard drive worked, and it forced itself to boot the Flash bootable cd, and I upgraded my BIOS from A04 to A22, and I was able to move into BIOS setup. To my dismay, I really didn't know how to remove a hard drive on a laptop. I do know how to on a desktop. I spent time removing all them bloody screws only to find out that I am going about it wrong. To the novice users, like myself, use this link: http://www.elinmastrangelo.net/Dell/inspiron/hdd.htm as a tool to help you remove the hard drive, it's a very simple 5 second process, I learned the hard way.
Thank you NemesisDB & dj_cool for your timely effort in assisting meself and other troubled users.
Your friend,
Don
soisays
1 Message
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November 18th, 2004 13:00
Just wanted to thank you guys in this forum. The above tips worked for me, too. I had browsed this forum after being through a week of calls and emails to Dell support, and they finally told me to send my laptop in because it needed a new system board!
I couldn't believe no one had ever had this problem before, as they would have me to think!
As it turns out, it looks like it's quite common. After checking the postings, I was able to do the whole fix, including making the bootable CD, flashing the bios, and getting the boot order changed within an hour.
Thanks again!