System won't boot and Dell Diagnostics doesn't recognize my system as a DELL??

Question

I have an Inspiron 5150 and had a Dell USB floppy plugged in.  I went to detach the floppy drive with the Safely Remove Hardware option and it locked up the remove option.  I could still move the mouse and such, but I went ahead and restarted my system.  Well, the system locked up on Windows Shutting Down screen so I powered everything off.  I went to reboot the computer and it gets to the Dell POST screen normally, but then right after that all I get is a black screen with a flashing cursor at the upper lefthand corner of the screen.   So I inserted my Dell Diagostics CD and it stops and says that 'This system is not recognized as a supported Dell PC' and the diagnostics won't run.  So... I put in the WinXP Installation CD that came with the computer and it starts to boot up and then I get a General Protection Fault screen with a black background and lots of white lettered code on the screen.    That's where I'm at.  Not able to do jack.  Any suggestions would be great.   Thanks in advance, Paseo92

NemesisDB · Answer

it's possible but highly unlikely that you need a newer version of the dell diagnostics program ... otherwise I'd say you have a motherboard or ram problem (but that is very much a guess)

NemesisDB · Answer

I suppose it could be the hard-drive, but I'm leaning more towards ram or systemboard given the diagnostic problems -- do you have two ram modules?  can you remove one and try each, one at a time, in each slot?  if you only have one, you should try it in the other slot

Paseo92 · Answer

Yes, but I was hoping to find an alternate solution...

NemesisDB · Answer

still under warranty?

Paseo92 · Answer

I have 2 256MB RAM modules in my system.  I used one at a time alternating between the 2 slots and same deal...

Paseo92 · Answer

For whatever reason it finally let me boot up with the WinXP installation CD.  I went in and did a repair on the WinXP on the C: drive.  I rebooted and the same black screen with flashing cursor appeared.  No luck...

NemesisDB · Answer

if you can't get the windows installer or the diagnostic CD to work, it would appear to be a hardware problem of some type.  It's time to set aside an hour or so of your life, call the 1 800 number at the top of this screen and let tech support decide what needs to be replaced

Paseo92 · Answer

That's a good point... wasn't thinking about that... it was a Win98 boot disk...

fenderguitarguy · Answer

Nemesis,   It could be that he needs to flash his bios with the current version, or even downflash the bios, loading a previous version.

NemesisDB · Answer

could be -- but I can't bring myself to recommend that on a system that is behaving that erraticly.  i'd let the tech recommend it  (and chances are that'll be about the 3rd or so thing on the list).

Paseo92 · Answer

I tried booting up with a floppy disk and it wouldn't let me access the C: drive.  Like it's not even there, but BIOS detects it.  If BIOS detects that it is there could this possibly be a Windows problem?  I finally was able to enter the Win XP setup disk and did a repair, but that didn't do anything.  Same blank screen.

insp1150_14CK56 · Answer

Not the ones I have....it gives the option to create/delete/view any partition above 16. try bootdisk.com's ME. It gives the option for NTFS.

NemesisDB · Answer

what OS was on the floppy?   most older things aren't going to see a winXP NTFS partition

NemesisDB · Answer

ME won't see an NTFS partition either ...  it's fat16/32 only

insp1150_14CK56 · Answer

Yeah, you need atleast ME. That's what I use for any system, old or new.

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