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Boot-up problems
Hello,
I have a Dimension 4100 running XPPro SP2. I recently upgraded my hard drive.
Old Config: WD 20 GB (dual OS 98SE + XP Pro SP2) + WD 100 GB (partitioned 40+60)
New Config: WD 160 GB (partitioned 40 + 120 GB, running only XPPro SP2) + WD 100 GB (partitioned 40+60)
The new setup ran fine for a week, but now I am having boot up problems. When I turn on the system, initially it started hanging up after detecting the different devices. It never went to the OS options screen. I went into bios, reset system settings to default and the system started fine. But only once. Now it doesn't even detect any devices. After detecting the video card, the
www.dell.com screen shows up and the systems hangs up. It seems to look for a floppy but that's it.
When I installed the 160 GB system, WD's installation program warned about drives greater than 137 GB. But I thought since I was running SP2, I was OK. Initially when the system ran fine for a week, a WD program used to start which gave me an option to hit C to boot from disk or something else to boot from CD. I never used that option because the system always booted fine.
I tried putting my old 20 GB drive back, but the system still hangs up at Dell.com.
1. Is this related to the 137 GB issue?
2. Is this a battery related problem since my system is quite old?
3. How can I start my system?
4. I assume it is not a bad 160 GB drive problem, because the 20 GD which has always worked also failed.
5. How can I reset my system?
6. I could not install Norton GoBack on the new setup because of some partition issues. Anybody know why? GoBack could probably have saved me.
7. Can I do a system restore? I have never used it before(, because Goback has always worked).
Help me.
Thanks.
No, I can't even get to Safe Mode. I don't get any options. The system seems to hang up on the www.dell.com screen.
Thanks.
- Hi,Well, if you can`t even get into Safe Mode I think your only option is to try a repairA repair won't lose any data, other than Service Pack 1/2 (if not on XP installation CD), any Windows Updates and unsigned drivers, which will need to be re-installed afterwards.
Stay offline to do a repair and do not go online again without a firewall enabled. After repairing XP, install Service Pack, firewall and then you must install all Critical Updates next.How to Repair XP
Boot up with the XP CD in the drive and let Setup run. Go past the first "R" repair option by pressing Enter just as if you're doing a clean install and you'll eventually come to an option to "Repair an existing installation". Select this one.http://www.theeldergeek.com/repairing_windows_xp.htm
Scroll way down page to
Windows Installation CD - Repair Current Installation - My computer stops at dell.com logo or after detecting devices, depending upon whether I enable quick boot.If I insert my XP CD or MSDOS floppy disk, it doesn't do anything. I have tried changing the bios to boot from CD, floppy, etc but none of them work. I have switched back to my old hard drive but that didn't work either.Even the WD hard drive setup CD doesn't do anything.Any guesses where I am screwing up?Thanks.
- Hi,When you changed the boot order in the BIOS did you Save it before exiting?Have you got a Win98 Startup floppy with CDROM support?Navigate to the i386 folder on the CD (at the A:> prompt type the letter of the cdrom drive, then "CD i386" without the quotes)
Then at the X:\i386> prompt (where X: is the letter of the cdrom drive) type "Winnt.exe".
That should run the normal Windows Setup.
- Now I`m thinking you must have mucked up the floppy drive connections in some way when you were installing the new hard drive.Go check all the connections and make sure all the pins are connectedWhile you are in there just check the connections for everything.Check that the RAM is seated properly too.It is so easy to just nudge something out of place.
- Thanks a lot for your help.
I unplugged and plugged back almost everything on the system and finally decided to remove the Netgear WG311 wireless adapter card, which had started giving me problems over the past 3 weeks. That solved the problem. Now the system boots up without any problems. The Netgear card had worked for about a month before it started failing.
Thanks.
dunedin
2732 Posts
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Posted September 5th, 2005 18:00
I don`t think it is the size of the large drive since you have partitioned it as you are supposed to do.
Get your WinXP CD handy, then go to Start>Run and type
"sfc /scannow" without the quotes. (There is a space before /)
That'll replace any missing or corrupt system files.