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XPS 400 won't boot
i have an XPS 400, bought in late 2005. has been working fine since. within past few weeks, started getting blue screen errors. within past week, system won't boot. both dell diagnostics (when i boot from the Dell Resource CD that came with the system) and Fix-It Utilities 7 recognize the hard drive and identify no problems with drive. system has the drive that came with it, as well as a new seagate drive i installed recently (the problems with the computer predate the drive installation). however, when i try to boot directly from primary drive (the one that came with the system), i get error "Missing OS or unformatted active partition".
with Fix-It Utilities i can view the full directories on both drives, and can even view contents of text files, so the drives seem intact. however, can't boot Windows XP from the drive that came with the system. unfortunately, i don't have the Dell Recovery CD. i am trying to decide whether to call Dell (system out of warranty, so i gotta pay!) or take it to a local repair shop. seems like problem can be fixed relatively easily with a recovery CD, but i don't have one, and hadn't made one before the crash. any suggestions? (by the way, i tried ctrl-F11 - didn't work, got the "Missing OS" message. also booted into the hidden utility partition on the disk - all tests passed, except one test indicated cross-linked files on the primary drive.) any help/suggestions would be much appreciated, been without my primary system for 10 days, and it's cramping my style.....
with Fix-It Utilities i can view the full directories on both drives, and can even view contents of text files, so the drives seem intact. however, can't boot Windows XP from the drive that came with the system. unfortunately, i don't have the Dell Recovery CD. i am trying to decide whether to call Dell (system out of warranty, so i gotta pay!) or take it to a local repair shop. seems like problem can be fixed relatively easily with a recovery CD, but i don't have one, and hadn't made one before the crash. any suggestions? (by the way, i tried ctrl-F11 - didn't work, got the "Missing OS" message. also booted into the hidden utility partition on the disk - all tests passed, except one test indicated cross-linked files on the primary drive.) any help/suggestions would be much appreciated, been without my primary system for 10 days, and it's cramping my style.....
- Did you write down the BSOD error codes? Have you installed any new programs in the last two weeks? Do you have Zone Alarm Pro fire wall?On some programs you install, if you don't disable Zone alarm first it will hide the boot files causing big problem...adding more information might help to determine what direction to follow in the fix...XPS400Pentium D 940250gb Hd2gb 667Mhz Pc 530019" LcdX-fi pro
- during the time that the computer has had problems, the error codes have changed. when it was blue-screening i would repeatedly get the STOP message with changing codes - around that time i ran a full diagnostic on my RAM (the 1024 MB that came with the computer, plus another 1024 that I added - the added RAM predated the computer problems by several weeks) and all the RAM passed.
once i'm home this evening i can post a message w/the various error codes that i have received so far. i don't think i installed any new programs during the weeks before the problems started, but at this point i wouldn't (easily) be able to do anything about them anyway, since i can't boot into windows XP. i could conceivably remove my primary drive and install it in my old computer as a slave, then change or delete files on it and put it back in the new computer. i'd rather not go to all that trouble, particularly since the hard drives seem to be physically intact.
i don't use zonealarm pro on the new computer. (when the problems started i was using McAfee plus the firewall settings on my router.) - Some of the error code history -
by 2/17/07, i had had problems with blue screens for a few days, STOP error messages, etc. that day, after i disconnected the ethernet cable computer was running okay for a while - about 2 hours - with no blue screens. i then attached the ethernet cable and the system crashed immediately, without me trying to download anything or even load the internet browser (i usually use Firefox).
shortly afterwards, a blue screen crash with a STOP 0x00000024 message, and a full dump of memory. soon after this problem, system was no longer able to boot.
on 2/18, got a message that the master boot record was damaged (on the primary drive; second drive doesn't have Windows on it, and is essentially empty).
on 2/19, started getting the "Missing OS or unformatted active partition" message, after trying to use Fix-It Utilities to put a generic master boot record on the drive. Then i ran the windows recovery console off of a Windows XP upgrade disk - when i tried to reboot, the 2nd and 3rd diagnostic lights (over the power button) stayed lit when system locked up. Then, on later attempts, the 1st and 4th lights stayed lit.
Then got a message on a reboot attempt: "Previous attempts at booting this system have failed at checkpoint [Ithr]. For help in resolving this problem, please note this checkpoint and contact Dell technical support."
so, that's the deal so far. call Dell and pay, or take machine in for service? CapitalCreation
65 Posts
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Posted February 23rd, 2007 16:00
Anytime my Pc won't boot up right, I unplug the power cord and hold in the power button for like 20 seconds.That resets everything and boots up everytime for me. Hope that is something you can use to help your issue.- i ended up buying Data Rescue PC from Recoversoft via amazon.com (about $90).
though i had a backup system in place, it was creating files on the same drive that was having problems (lot of good that did, eh?!). anyway, Data Rescue enabled me to copy all of the data off my drive on to my 2nd hard drive.
then i wiped the primary drive and, after many travails, was able to reinstall Windows XP on my primary drive, and i'm back in business.
i never did figure out why i was having the blue screen and boot problems - maybe a virus (though i was running McAfee Antivirus, and signatures were current).
anyway, thanks to all for your help. CapitalCreation
65 Posts
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Posted March 16th, 2007 16:00
Norton and McAfee are junk virus software as they don't pick up the nasty trojans. I use Stop-Sign, Ad-Aware SE Pro and Zone Alarm Pro, with those three combined, viruses don't stand a chance.Glad to hear you have things back up and running...
cyberry
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Posted February 22nd, 2007 03:00