NEVER again

sioda

Well I finally let the marketing machine take my soul and bought a DELL 520 a few weeks ago. What a mistake. As i own a full version of Win XP and a seperate copy of SP2 I decided to wipe the machine and create a slipstream installation. So job done disk made set the machine to Cd boot and nothing happened. The CD just would not boot as it said the it could not load the cd drivers.

Any and all help appreciated.

Wish I got a floppy disk now:mad:

Creamy Goodness

try the cd you made in another machine it may just not be bootable, which wouldn't be dell's fault.

Zapho

You can make a usb key bootable too if there is a problem with the cd drivers. Most newer BIOS's can boot to usb devices.

sioda

Have tried the Cd on my old machine and it worked fine.

Hadn't thought of the USB option is there a decent program out there to make one bootable

Capt'n Midnight

SATA drivers ?

http://cruftbox.com/blog/archives/000867.html

Here's what not to do:
1) Pull floppy drive from another computer
2) Get lazy and not install the floppy, simply hang it by cables on the side of computer
3) After using floppy, allow the exposed circuitboard to touch the case
4) Watch smoke come from the floppy drive since the power was shorted out
5) Toss floppy drive in the trash

sioda

No probs with the SATA drivers love the added advise though can see it being done

joe_chicken

Ooops...

Here's what I did for my SATA install:
1) Pull floppy drive from another computer
2) Get lazy and not install the floppy, simply hang it by cables on the side of computer...

I had no choice though... there was no room in my case

And it worked grand!

Back on topic....

Why don't you
1) Pull the CD drive from another PC
2) Get lazy and not install the Drive, simply hang it by cables on the side of computer...

you might break your Drive, but if it works, at least you'll have a computer that works



WARNING: just in case you didn't catch it from the cap'n, this is dangerous

humaxf1

How did you copy the slipstreamed XP files to CD? Just a normal copy? If so, you didnt copy the 'bootable' properties.

You have to use a program like N-Lite which slipstreams the SP and then creates a fully bootable .iso image for burning to a CD.

Beats me why you wiped XP before you created the new CD and verified it was working...or wiped in the first place when XP was working ok on the Dell.

Soundman

humaxf1 wrote:

Beats me why you wiped XP before you created the new CD and verified it was working...or wiped in the first place when XP was working ok on the Dell.

Was wondering that myself. Presume it was because of the Dell partitions and preloaded software. Though most of the software you can just uninstall anyway and run CCleaner to clean the registry of the software's install info and so on.

sioda

Managed to uninstall 90% of the pre installed crap. The DELL wireless manager killed my network settings and then good ol Mc Afee refused to dissappear so dragged out of the registry by hand.

Its just crap that a main stream company can sell such utter crap.

Only problem now is if I leave it on downloading over night I actually have to hard shut down as the system is locked GOD i hate Dell.

Think I mite go back to my old MarxComputers custom build.

Capt'n Midnight

Have you tried the Dell Decrapifier ?
http://www.yorkspace.com/pc-de-crapifier

sioda

Capt'n That is class must circulate that to everyone I know