UNSOLVED
Windows XP Repair
Everyone
During one of Microsoft's automatic upgrades of XP my PC was somehow trashed about a month ago. I can no longer get on the internet and my sound is out.
After working with GeeksToGo the problem is quite clearly that XP itself has been trashed...many key services are not running and cannot be started manually.
What I want to do is repair XP. I have followed the instructions but have hit a roadblock.
1. I have successfully booted from the XP CD.
2. But it can't find any instances of XP installed.
3. I have traced that problem to the fact that my PC (Dell 510) has RAID.
4. I have followed the instructions to press F6 so that I can load the drivers for RAID from another CD.
Now...here's the problem. It asks me to put the drivers on drive A:. There is NO A: DRIVE on this computer. The hard drive is C:, the backup (RAID) is D:, and the devices start at E:. I can't figure out any way to change this A: requirement.
Is there any way around this problem...to tell XP to look for the drivers on E: or F: or whatever? Or to change a mapping of one of the other drives to A:?
Help!!!
Jason.
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Posted March 14th, 2008 03:00
Hi while researching downgrading from vista to a XP-home install I came across what is called slipstream. Basicly its taking your xp install cd and adding of service packs, patches and best of all drivers to a cd image.
There is a manual way of doing this but I came across a program calle nLite that does this for you and it is feeware.
Now the way this works is you need a legal CD, The nLite freeware program. You will need to download the drivers you want to add to the cd . In affect you are making a backup CD with the new drivers on it. The nlite program will make an image though I have not tried burning a image with it as of yet.
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Posted March 14th, 2008 14:00
Well that actually sounds promising.
I will look into this...thank you.
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Posted March 15th, 2008 00:00
Run BIOS setup and change the hard drive setting from RAID to RAID Autodetect/ATA. It shouldn't ask you for the RAID drivers again and should allow the install to run.
<> If you haven't already reformatted the hard drive, have you rebooted and gone to F8 menu and tried "last known good"?And if you haven't already reformatted, there's still the option of a Repair/Reinstall which will only reinstall XP but shouldn't affect personal files or the software you installed. And if you haven't reformatted, you could run PC Restore which will reset the hard drive to exactly the way Dell shipped it with XP, drivers, and all preinstalled software. Your personal stuff will be lost after PC Restore.
Ron
Message Edited by RoHe on 03-14-2008 06:51 PM
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Posted March 15th, 2008 15:00
Ron
This bios reset idea to autodetect sounds promising and I'll try it.
With regard to your second suggestion on repairing XP that is exactly what I am trying to do...repair XP without trashing all my stuff and having to reinstall everything. Is there is a different way of going about that than what I am trying? It is in trying to do just that that I am running into this "A:" restriction.
PC restore would be my next step most likely...unfortunately!
Thanks
jason.
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Posted March 15th, 2008 17:00
If you set the BIOS to Raid Autodetect/ATA, do not press the F6 at the prompt . . just let it continue619
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Posted March 16th, 2008 18:00
I tried the BIOS change to Autodetect RAID and it did not work. In fact it was already set to AutoDetect RAID.
So my only possibility for success here seems to be if I can get an A: floppy drive installed on the machine and create a floppy with the necessary RAID drivers.
Has anyone attempted to install a floppy on a machine...either internal or preferably USB...and gotten the machine to recognize it as the A: drive?
Jason.
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Posted March 16th, 2008 21:00
They are dirt cheap these days . . you can buy a drive and cable for under $20 . . If you don't want to perminently mount it in the case, just connect the data ribbon to the motherboard, the power to the drive and let it dangle for the repair operation . . then take it out
jmwills
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11984 Posts
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Posted March 14th, 2008 01:00
The default will alwys be "A" but there should be a browse button next to it so you can navigate to another location.