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Dell Dimension 8400 Boot Problem, can't reinstall or get to a prompt.
I have a Dell Dimension 8400 that will not boot. Not a noob, but I am totally stumped. The computer would shut down in Windows because of an unrecoverable error and reboot (unsure of the error, not my computer), was not sure if it was a virus so I went to a early restore point a couple months back. Now the computer will not boot to safe mode/prompt or a previous state of running windows. When booting I get an infinite restart loop. So I tried to do a fresh install of windows, but both cd drives do not show in the bios. I tried multiple hardware configs on either drive, but they won't show in the bios, even the floppy doesn't show up in the bios.
I removed the Hard drive and did multiple tests on the drive in another computer all came back error free.
I replaced the battery on the mother board.
So I did a different approach a made a bootable flash drive and slip streamed the drivers/sp3 ect on the drive. The computer does recognize the flash drive as a bootable device, but crashes during install. After reading other forums about a SATA issue with this model dell I tried other settings.
SATA Settings
Raid Autodetect AHCI - blue screen of death (default setting)
Raid Autodetect ATA - Blue screen
RAID On - Blue Screen
Combination - Blue Screen
I get the blue screen during installation when it says starting windows.
Looking for any and all options.
Thanks.
RoHe
10 Elder
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October 28th, 2013 17:00
I assume this is Windows XP, correct?
Did you slipstream the SATA driver onto the USB stick along with everything else?
On the 8400, BIOS has to be set to RAID Autodetect/ATA during the install because XP's setup.exe doesn't recognize SATA drives. If you installed the SATA drivers either slip-streamed or from floppy disk during the installation, when Windows says it's rebooting and gives a BSOD, you have to reboot and go into BIOS setup to change the SATA Operations setting back to AHCI. Otherwise, you just get a 0x0000007B BSOD.
If that doesn't solve it, see what color the 4 diagnostic LEDs are on rear of the tower. They should all be green when it completes the POST. If not all green, look up error codes in the online manual.
keith_rok
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October 29th, 2013 20:00
Yes XP.
The 4 Diag Leds are green.
And yes the Sata drives were slip streamed into the install.
I don't think it is a windows problem, but still get the 0x0000007B BSOD/
Thoughts?
rdunnill
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October 29th, 2013 23:00
You can add the drivers with F6 at install time or set up a third-party SATA card the same way.
I've never used slipstreaming in all the XP installs I performed back in the day.
RoHe
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October 30th, 2013 12:00
Did you set SATA Operation to RAID Autodetect/ATA before you started the install?
Did you change SATA Operation back to AHCI after you installed XP, when it tries to reboot itself? When it gives you the BSOD, just reboot, press F2 to go into BIOS setup and make the change. Be sure to save the change before exiting setup and let it reboot.
If you don't make both of those at the right time, you'll get the same 7B error.
I've never slip-streamed SATA drivers into XP for my 8400, but it should be doable. But as rdunnill suggested, you could just load them from a floppy by pressing F6 at the beginning of the install when prompted.
keith_rok
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November 3rd, 2013 06:00
Got the cds working with changing the bios to ATA, and started the install from the windows xp disk.
Couple of crashes with the install and BSOD
0x00000024 (0x001902FA, 0xF738A2EC, 0xF7389FEC, 0x8053CBB8)
0x00000050 ect
ran chkdsk /r
and now it freezes on the windows xp install on registering components????
keith_rok
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November 3rd, 2013 10:00
Also got 0x0000008e
I think it maybe a bad RAM.
RoHe
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November 3rd, 2013 12:00
0x00000024 may occur if the hard drive has a formatting error. You may need to reformat the drive (NTFS) before installing XP
8e is a typcial RAM error. Are all 4 diagnostic LEDs still green?
You can try this to fix the 8e:
BTW: How many optical and hard drives on installed? XP has problems installing when there's more than one optical or hard drive, so disconnect the others, leaving on the CD drive at the end of the ribbon cable to install and only the destination hard drive.
NOTES:
keith_rok
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November 3rd, 2013 13:00
All 4 Leds are green.
Already tried the removing the battery.
Currently running memtest68, once complete I will try to install with only 1 of the optical disks plugged in, and I am using an offical win xp disk.
RoHe
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November 4th, 2013 10:00
Better yet... Enable the OS Install Mode setting in BIOS setup. That will limit the amount of RAM visible to the Windows installer. After XP is installed and running properly, go back into BIOS setup and disable OS Install Mode so all installed RAM can be used.
speedstep
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November 4th, 2013 10:00
Try installing with 1 Ram chip. Sounds like there are issues with ram.
keith_rok
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November 9th, 2013 14:00
TY, It was a bad ram chip. Up and running now.
Thanks for bouncing ideas back and forth with me.
-k