My Dell shat itself again..

[Oldandeasilyconfused]

Windows will not open. I get a blue stop screen.

I CAN get the menu screen (PF8) BUT it will not start in safe mode nor restore to to the last configuration which worked.

This is a worry.Thoughtst of bad hard drive are dancing though my head. I obtained an XP install disc. It's not kosher,but I have the product key.

Question: Can I use that to start in DOS mode,and do a disc check? If so,how.

PART TWO (different problem)

Yes,Joyce,this a different PC. I went out and bought a second hand Pentium 4 yesterday (an HP) Yes, I probably paid too much, ($195 box only) AND seem to have been ripped off: It was sold to me as having 512 meg of RAM,it has 256. (248 to be precise) I would not have bought it with only 256. It works but is a little slow .I dont really mind, I'm just annoyed about apparently being cheated. I had a look at the receipt; it doesn't actually say 513meg ,so I may be stuffed. I'll take it back once my Dell is fixed and play nice. I will not argue if he is difficult. I will simply take him to the small claims court. As it turns out,my best mate is a barrister and will advise me.

QUESTION: I'm assuming I cannot cannibalise the RAM from my old Pentium3? (it has 750meg) Its RAM is; DDR SDRAM PC2700 ( voltage SSTL 2-5 (166mgz) The HP uses PC 2700 (300 or 400 mgz) I'm assumimg the two are incompatible?

I'm thinking of formating this machine and installing Linux, probably ubuntu.


I'm not happy.The PC is only 2 years old and this the third time it has needed repairs. I can afford to buy a new one ,but that's not the point. I will spend a couple of hundred to fix it. I suspect it may need a new hardrive. That will be about $120,plus about another $200 fo the techie. I think I'd like to kill something.

[theVOID]

Windows will not open. I get a blue stop screen.

I CAN get the menu screen (PF8) BUT it will not start in safe mode nor restore to to the last configuration which worked.

This is a worry.Thoughtst of bad hard drive are dancing though my head. I obtained an XP install disc. It's not kosher,but I have the product key.

Question: Can I use that to start in DOS mode,and do a disc check? If so,how.

1) Boot from the Windows XP CD

2) During installation you should be presented with the option to enter the recovery console "R"

3) Select the Operating system to repair (Will almost always be "1") and Log into the OS

4) Run Chkdsk for the disk check, if the scan fails you can repair sector by sector with chkdsk volume:/f

5) It sounds like you may have a boot error, try running Fixboot also.

PART TWO (different problem)

Yes,Joyce,this a different PC. I went out and bought a second hand Pentium 4 yesterday (an HP) Yes, I probably paid too much, ($195 box only) AND seem to have been ripped off: It was sold to me as having 512 meg of RAM,it has 256. (248 to be precise) I would not have bought it with only 256. It works but is a little slow .I dont really mind, I'm just annoyed about apparently being cheated. I had a look at the receipt; it doesn't actually say 513meg ,so I may be stuffed. I'll take it back once my Dell is fixed and play nice. I will not argue if he is difficult. I will simply take him to the small claims court. As it turns out,my best mate is a barrister and will advise me.

QUESTION: I'm assuming I cannot cannibalise the RAM from my old Pentium3? (it has 750meg) Its RAM is; DDR SDRAM PC2700 ( voltage SSTL 2-5 (166mgz) The HP uses PC 2700 (300 or 400 mgz) I'm assumimg the two are incompatible?

I'm thinking of formating this machine and installing Linux, probably ubuntu.

The P4 could either take DDR SDRAM or RDRAM, if it is the former then the only problem may be the speed (i.e it's somewhat likely that the speed of the RAM in the P4 is faster than the P3, this means that the faster ram, pc3200 for example, will be clocked down to the PC2700 speed).

More Ram > Fast ram when you're dealing in <1GB.

If it's RDRAM then you can't do jack.

Oh, and try out Suse Linux

I'm not happy.The PC is only 2 years old and this the third time it has needed repairs. I can afford to buy a new one ,but that's not the point. I will spend a couple of hundred to fix it. I suspect it may need a new hardrive. That will be about $120,plus about another $200 fo the techie. I think I'd like to kill something.

I owned a dell once, the best experience i ever had with it was when it was stolen I will never buy one again, they're junk.

[Oldandeasilyconfused]

Thank you void. That sounds terrific. I'll do that. (I'm assuming the disc I have will work)


From what I can gather from other owners, Dell computer are just dandy unels you want to use them at a lot.

The RAM: is that a yes? I'm quite happy to cannibalise what ever I can from the old.(that's assuming the vendor won't give me the extra RAM) I aslo have an extra hardrive I had added to the Pentium 3 (80GB)

Thanks again. If this works I will admit you to The Order Of The Golden Bilby.

[leo-rcc]

We have over 350 Dell workstations and 70 Dell laptops in this company, with a negligible amount of hardware failures, I've had 3 in the last 5 years, all related to cracking the casing of their laptops in the C400 series.

Dell has a system check option from the BIOS start, so that is before any OS is loaded. What type of Dell is it?

[Oldandeasilyconfused]

We have over 350 Dell workstations and 70 Dell laptops in this company, with a negligible amount of hardware failures, I've had 3 in the last 5 years, all related to cracking the casing of their laptops in the C400 series.

Dell has a system check option from the BIOS start, so that is before any OS is loaded. What type of Dell is it?

Thank you, that is actually very comforting.


It's a desktop, INSPIRON 530S.

I'm going to try Void's suggestions first thing in the morning (it's after 8 PM here and I'm morning person.)

I'm a bit wary of fooling with the BIOS. I lack the knowledge to understand what I'm doing at that level.Iwould however be grateful if you coudl point me at a guide.

[Tiberius]

You can back up valuable data by booting into a Linux live cd if you need to, mounting the hard drive, and copying things over to a external.

If you are new to Linux, I'd advise Ubuntu rather than Suse. Actually, I'd advise it generally as well. Last time I used Suse I uninstalled it within an hour because of glitches and bugs.

[Oldandeasilyconfused]

Thanks Adrian. That sounds really promising. I actually have a live linux CD somewhere,as well as 1TB external l hardrive on which I have backed up a lot of stuff. I currently have that hard drive attached to this PC.


The live linux disc is several years old. Do I need to download a newer version?


Could I use the Linux CD to do a diagnostic and repair? If,how? Please keep it idiot simple ;IE' 'turn on Pc,insert disc, press Pf (?)------

[Tiberius]

Which distro / version is on the disk?

In Ubuntu, you can mount drives easily by right-clicking on the one of the system bars, clicking "Add to Panel", and choosing the "Disk Mounter" tool. Now any harddrives (including external) will appear as icons in the system bar. Clicking on them enables you to mount them, and from there you can open them in the file manager and drag / drop the files.

Or there are other methods for doing it on the command-line: http://www.pendrivelinux.com/mounting-a-...-in-linux/

I'll be happy to walk you through it if you want to talk over MSN or some other chat protocol if you like.

[Autumnlicious]

Thanks Adrian. That sounds really promising. I actually have a live linux CD somewhere,as well as 1TB external l hardrive on which I have backed up a lot of stuff. I currently have that hard drive attached to this PC.


The live linux disc is several years old. Do I need to download a newer version?


Could I use the Linux CD to do a diagnostic and repair? If,how? Please keep it idiot simple ;IE' 'turn on Pc,insert disc, press Pf (?)------

Get a new disc/distro.

Short answer: No.
Long answer: Yes if you know what you are doing. And that means that you can't just be given a series of commands. You'd have to post on a dedicated linux forum and have them post-by-post try to help you remotely.

Suggestion:
Insert a live cd (Ubuntu), boot off of the CD drive, wait for the pretty graphical environment to launch, goto the "Places" menu (on the top, like the MacOS bar) and clicky on your hard drive. If it opens, you're in luck - the file system is not damaged and the drive still works. If not, either the hard drive is busted or the filesystem is dirty - refer to a linux forum for fsck'ing a dirty windows partition.

Insert a USB key or something, copy off your files. Reinstall windows or install linux.

[Oldandeasilyconfused]

Thanks guys


Void; the conmmand '1' for the system to repair is incorrect.

000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

Synackaon

The Ubuntu disc is from August 2008 and will not boot. I get an error message. (it mentioned Delll)
Doesn't matter; I only wanted to use it on the Dell to do a disc check and bootfix,and it seems that is not possible. Can't do anything right now about new CD's as this machine has no burner. I should be able to use the Pioneer burner from the Pentium 3.

Once the Dellis fixed, I intend to format this PC and install Ubuntu to give it a good try for a few months,with view to putting it on the Dell.