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now we are getting somewhere. you have successfully booted the machine. now we need to see if the computer and operating system recognizes that the hard drive is there...it most likely does. instead of typeing HELP type
'FDISK /STATUS' (without the quotes of course) and press enter. post the results. and be thinking about what operating system you want to install.
OK this is what came up... fixed disk drive status disk" reading drive E Abort,Retry,Fail?
Disk 1
Drv
C: 2045
Mbytes
4105
Free
Usage
100%
{1 MByte= 1048576 bytes} then it gives me the
A:\> again with cursor blinking
it looks as tho the hard drive is ok...since you dont have the disks that came with the system i guess its up to you now to decide what operating system you want to put on it. since it had xp on it before i guess you could go that route.
Quote:
Originally Posted by geeksRus
I did try and put the windows xp disk that I have in there and reinstall and it want even start it up it still just comes back to a black screen and don't try and load the CD I put in there. so now what could be my problem?
I want to put back the XP but it want let me do anything. I take the floppy disk out and put in the windows xp disk and it just goes to that black screen again with cursor blinking.
did you go into the BIOS and set the boot sequence/boot order to be CD-ROM first? you have to set the machine to boot from the CD. when you restart the machine you may see a message that says 'Press any key to boot from CD...' if you do then press a key when you see it. the most important thing to do tho is to set the computer to boot from the CD instead of the hard drive. you may have to look around in the BIOS to find where to change the boot order. don't worry, you wont mess anything up if you only change the boot order.
Is Ok my replies are invisible again :D :D
At the risk of confusing matters .. this machine just started up 'fine' from "an old win98 disk" - so that'd kind of rule that out ;) ..however if you go look at Dell's site for this model, you can find a bios update which might maybe help get xp to install ? ( I found that by starting here & picking 'inspirion 2500' from the drop down box)Quote:
Originally Posted by geeksRus
Thanks for the info, I went there and can't seem to get the page to load for me. when i click on my model it will not bring it up. it comes up to say this page can not be found. I will try again. all this is driving me nuts. :rolleyes:Quote:
Originally Posted by confus-ed
I don't know much about all this as you can tell. I'm not good with computers.
i referenced your post...was glad for the help.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mayet
Thanks Mayet, for your help I appreciate it much. sorry I'm just so confussed this thing driving me crazy ha.Quote:
Originally Posted by geeksRus
Can you tell me how to go into BIOS and set the boot sequence/boot order to be CD-ROM?Quote:
Originally Posted by Mayet
in the BIOS the boot order screen should look like this:
http://gstorm.cjb.cc/boot.jpg
use the + and - keys to move the cd to the top of the list. exit and save changes. now you should be able to insert the win xp cd and boot from it.
Ok I did that and where it has the
+ Removable divice
+ Hard Drive
+ CD ROM Drive
there's no + by the CD- ROM drive so could that have something to do with it?
what does that mean? I go down and highlite the CD-ROM Drive and save.
But it still want boot from CD-ROM drive.
when you say you hilite the cd-rom and save do you move the cd to the top of the list first? you need to do that. use the + key to move the cd to the top after you hilite it. then save and exit.
thank you thank you...haha we got it going now. Thanks to you. :-)