Reformatting problems...

[chewie8008]

I reformatted my parents computer using the XP installation discs and have ran into a few errors.

First off, it now has two instances of Windows XP installed instead of just the one. The first few times I booted up the computer it would have me choose which instance of XP I wanted to run. The XP that was originally installed w/ the computer would not run. However, now it doesn't even ask me, it just boots right up. I need to just get rid of this and i'm not sure how to...

Secondly I cannot set the screen resolution over 640x480, everything is just grayed out. And also the color quality will not go over 16bit(medium).

And last, it seems to not be recognizing the modem. Under connections it just shows "Modem - Unavailable device COM1" How do I get it to search and read that there is in fact a modem installed. I went to device manager and looked under ports COM1 and it says it's working properly. I didn't see anything that mentioned modem.

The computer is a:

Dell Dimension 2400
Pentium 4 2.66G processor
256mb of RAM
40GB Harddrive
Microsoft Windows 2002 Service Pack 1

I had reformatted my Compaq about a year ago without any problems at all. Of course being a Compaq it was a different process in reformatting...

Any help would be appreciated...

[redwudz]

Here's a discussion of how to eliminate a second boot up option: https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=269281

I'm assuming you used the OS discs provided by Dell? If you didn't want to save anything on the hard drive, you are better off to re-partition and reformat. That would be a 'clean install' and takes up a lot less space.

For your modem problems, uninstall the modem with Device Manager and let the OS find it again. The modem may think Com 1 is being used and installed itself with a different Com. If you don't see a modem, try 'Control Panel>Add Hardware and you may restore it that way.

For the video card, it sounds like the video drivers aren't installed and you are using a generic OS driver. You should go to Dell and see if they have a upgraded driver for the modem and the video card and use them for installing the device drivers. If no luck, uninstall the video drivers and try again.


Personally, if there is nothing on the drive you want, I would do the OS install over.

[kidmegabit]

Do you have all the disks that came with this computer? If so, you should also have a drivers cd, in order to reinstall the drivers for the modem and sound. When you restored using those disks, did you actually format the harddrive? If not, you should try again and chose format the drive. Otherwise you'll end up with what you got now. Two installs. Dell recover disks are pretty easy to use, you just have to pay attention to what it's asking you to do. I restore Dell's on a daily basis where I work.

Below is a link to dell's drivers for that computer.

http://support.dell.com/support/downloads/devices.aspx?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs&SystemID=...&os=WW1&osl=EN

[chewie8008]

I think I am missing some discs that came w/ the computer. I wasn't able to find recover discs, so I just used the Operating System disc(which clearly says that it's already on the PC, only use for reinstallation blah blah). I don't know what I was thinking. Apparenlty there are other discs, huh?

I do have the driver cds. But that does me no good w/o the recover discs. Is there anywhere I can get these discs for cheap/free? I know this is the best way to go about it, but I guess I could just continue w/ what I have, remove one OS, update the drivers and uninstall/reinstall the modem...

I dunno. Spyware started all this. My parents/brothers got an unbelievable amount of spyware on the PC. I removed some of it and just got tired of thinking it was all gone and finding more later. So in the end I just figured it would be easier to reformat the computer and start from fresh.

Thanks guys.

[redwudz]

If it had a whole lot of spyware, reformatting is sometimes the easiest. Dell should be able to replace the missing discs.

Some computers install a separate partition for recovery, my laptop has one. But HP never gave me the software to use it, so it's pretty useless. It has 6 discs to re-install the OS. Usually if one of the recover discs is missing, the setup would tell you, though I don't know how Dell does it.

At least on my laptop recovery discs, there is an option to re-partition. That seems the easiest way to clean out the system. Then reformat and re-install the OS. Your setup may have added another partition and just complicated things.

If you haven't been there, Control Panel>Administrative Tools>Computer Management>Storage>Disk Management may show you the harddrive layout. It may show hidden partitions, also.

My favorite package for spyware/virus protection is Spybot S&D, Spyware Blaster and AVG antivirus. All freeware. XP SP2 also has some protections built in.

[chewie8008]

Ok, well maybe this will tell you something. Whenever I try to install the OS it says this...

"76294MB Disk 0 at Id 0 on bus 0 on atapi [MBR]"

and I can choose from the following options...

"Unpartitioned Space 31 MB
C: Partition 1 [NTFS] 76254 MB (65909 MB free)
Unpartitioned space 8 MB"

Oh and not that it matters but just so you don't wonder, I was wrong it's an 80gig drive not 40(or 75gig whatever).

Hopefully you'll know something, cause i'm really not sure what's best to do.

Thanks!

[redwudz]

The ~76.3Gb is about right for a 80Gb hard drive. The 8Mb is probably for the HD housekeeping, that's normal. The 31Mb is probably the diagnostic partition. It does sound like you may have added a second copy of the OS or the re-format didn't work properly.

If you can delete the 76Gb partition and re-partition and reformat it, that should start you with a clean slate. The Dell disc should be able to do that. If not, there are other options, such a booting from a W98 startup floppy and using Fdisk to re-partition. Makes things a little harder with just a Dell OS setup disc.

Looks like kidmegabit gave a good link for any other drivers you may need.

[kidmegabit]

which clearly says that it's already on the PC, only use for reinstallation blah blah

That is the xp cd given from Dell. Used for reinstalling the os just like a regular XP CD (non Dell disk). As redwuz said, you'd be better off deleting the partition that's the whole of the drive, C: Partition 1 [NTFS] 76254 MB (65909 MB free). the disk you have will allow you to do this. And usually it will ask if you're sure you want to continue, you must hit a certain key to accomplish this, but keep going. If you don't delete the initial partition, then format the whole drive again, you'll end up with exactly what you already have, two windows installs. The drivers in that link, will have every driver you need for that model Dell.

[chewie8008]

Ok, I hit delete partition on the "C: Partition 1 [NTFS] 76254 MB (65909 MB free). " and it gave me the following message...

"Setup is unable to perform the requested operation on the selected partition. This partition contains temporary Setup files that are required to complete the installation

To continue press Enter"

if I press enter it just takes me back to the previous screen and Enter is the only option.

So i'm assuming I have to delete this partition from outside the Dell disk, but don't know how...

[kidmegabit]

Okay, then can you format the drive? It should give you that option even if it won't let you delete the partiton which I find strange as I do this about every other day at work with no problems. You could use a third party NTFS delete tool (Delpart), but that's more complicated and you would need a separate boot disk, one on floppy.

[redwudz]

The method I have used is to download and burn to a floppy a Win 98 bootdisk. You can get one at this site among others.http://www.bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm

It's not complicated, but the steps are more than I want to type at the moment. You can go to the MS site for info: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/255867/

You boot into DOS from the floppy, run Fdisk and delete, then create a new partition. You still use the Install CD to format and install the OS, but you now have an empty partition to install into.

I will send you a PM with the method I use.

This is a lot easier if you have a standard XP Home OS disc, and if all else fails, that may be the alternative. No matter how bad I messed up, I could still recover and install the OS.

From what kidmegabit says, you have the full OS install disc.

[chewie8008]

So do I choose the FAT16 or FAT32? I'm assuming the FAT16, but I don't want to get any deeper in the hole then I already am. If FAT16 what size should I set it to, or just leave it at the 2Gig?

[chewie8008]

Bump, anyone?

[redwudz]

Neither, you want NTFS. If you have to use a W98 disk to format, use FAT32, then reformat as NTFS with the Win XP disc when you install XP. It will ask you. That's why you don't want to format with the Win 98 disk if you can avoid it. No big deal, though, just takes a little longer to re-format with the XP disc.

The primary purpose of all this is to delete the old partition and start fresh.

[smearbrick1]

Just to add...

There are no specific "recovery" discs for Dells. I've had two, and there are no discs that specifically say "recover". For a reinstall of a dell computer, you only need the Dell OS disc (which you have) and the dell drivers discs (the ugly blue discs that came with the system). You do not need a "recovery" disc if you have the drivers disc and the OS disc (this statement was just moronic, as the drivers and the OS discs are the recovery discs.) I would take redwudz advice and reformat using a Dos disk and FDISK. Then, reboot the machine with the OS install disc in the DVD/CD rom drive. After the OS installs, use the DRIVERS disc (no "recovery" disc... this is not a Compaq) to install the video, sound, modem, chipset, lan, and whatever drivers you need.

Just a side question: Was it necessary to even format the PC in the first place? I mean it's dimension 2400. I'd imagine it came from the factory with XP Home. What was the problem that caused the issue.

[chewie8008]

It had it's fair share of spyware that I didn't want to deal with. That was the purpose. When I tried to use the OS and driver discs that's how I ended up w/ two OS...I dunno.

Anyways, it won't let me choose NTFS, it's FAT16 or FAT32. It gives me some error message, I can't remember what the message is now, as I don't have the PC on. If I can't figure it out I can post the message tomorrow sometime.

Thanks for the help guys.

[thevoelk]

Just delete all partitions on the hard disk. Make sure you don';t have the standard Dell (approx) 30 MB hidden partition in front of the C: partition. You should be able to check in Disk Management.

[chewie8008]

Ok so I went through and deleted all partitions. Had it completely blank. Repartitioned and formatted with the win98 boot disk. It would not let me format with the OS disc. Once I had it repartitioned it would not recognize the disc. The only thing that would come up was something like "no operating system available".

So then I reformatted and it still won't run the OS disk. Is there something at the command prompt that I must type to get it to run the disc? It just comes up and says "Microsoft Windows 98" and then has copyright info and a command prompt. I tried booting w/ and w/o the win98 boot disk in. No dice. If I boot w/ the disk in it takes me back to the

"Your computer has a disk larger than 512 MB. This version of Windows includes improved support for large disks, resulting in more efficient use of disk space on large drives, and allowing disks over 2 GB to be formatted as a single drive.

IMPORTANT: If you enable large disk support and create any new drives on this disk, you will not be able to access the new drive(s) using other operating systems, including some versions of Windows 95 and Windows NT, as well as earlier versions of Windows and MS-DOS. In addition, disk utilities that were not designated explicitly for the FAT32 file system will not be able to work with this disk. If you need to access this disk with other operating systems or older disk utilities, do not enable large drive support.

Do you wish to enable large disk support?"

So I clicked yes just for the sake of getting farther and was able to go to "display partition properties" or whatever and made sure there was only one partition still(and there was).

So really that's where i'm at, unable to run the OS disc...what am I missing?

I have read all the information that pertains to this subject on the site redwudz gave me... http://support.microsoft.com/kb/255867/#XSLTH3137121122120121120120 It doesn't really say anything after the formatting process...

Thanks again!

[thevoelk]

Just delete the paritions and leave it blank. Put your Windows XP CD in the drive and restart. If it's a real XP cd, your computer will detect the bootable CD and auto start the install process. If you don't feel like doing this, put your XP CD in the drive.

If you want to leave the partitions alone, since it's a Dell, hit F12 when you see the Dell Screen when you first power up. This will take you to a Quick boot menu, I think it's option 4 to boot from the CD Drive (it depends on the drives you have installed). If you have two drives, as long as they boot from a CD, it will check both of them. After choosing the CD, you should see familiar Press and key to boot from CD...

[chewie8008]

I tried doing F12 and booting from the cd drive, no dice. Just comes up and says "strike F1 to retry reboot F2 for setup utility".

Actually I just tried F12 and put the cd in the top drive instead of the bottom one and it's booting. So for whatever reason it only works in the top drive.

Thanks

[thevoelk]

If it's a Dell, for future reference, when you get that message, go into set up and hit Alt-F. You'll hear a beep, and then hit Alt-B. This flushes the drive settings in BIOS and forces a rescan of the drives on startup.

[chewie8008]

Of course all has not gone smoothly since then. I did get XP installed and have only one instance of it on the PC. However, I am still having problems getting the moniter settings changed from 16bit to 32bit and higher color settings. I used the 'resource cd' which says it has drivers and utilities on it. It does not have anything useful or helpful on there. Did not solve the problem. I put the moniter cd in and all it has is information about the moniter, no files. I went through troubleshooting and got nothing. Screen size will still only stay on 640x480. I have not tested the modem settings(which was one of the original problems), but i'm willing to bet it's still not detecting the modem.

I'll keep messing with, if you guys know what's causing this, let me know.

[redwudz]

You're getting there.

Have you tried using the video card and modem drivers that kidmegabit mentioned earlier from Dell's site? Those should be more recent versions than you have on your discs.

I wouldn't worry too much about the monitor settings, those come after the drivers are installed.

[thevoelk]

The resource CD from dell has all dell drivers for all esaktops and notebooks. The problem with it is that each individual device has the entire set of driver zipped up into a ZIP file named RXXXXXX, where XXXXX is Dell's part number for the device. You won't be able to put the CD in and have Windsows search for the drivers. It should, if Autorun is enabled, automatically open up and give you a list of a ll devices on the desktop and say which drivers are not installed and which are. If you aren't sure about your video card driver, the onboard is most likely an Intel card.

Another thing you can try is go into a command prompt and type debug and hit enter. At the netxt line, type DC000:35 and hit Enter. On the right side, you'll see a bunch of code. Hit d and enter until you see your video card listed. It won't always list it as "ATI Radeon 9600XT Pro", it will most likely say "ATI Radeon 9600". If you want, PM me the service tag of your box and I'll get you a list of the RXXXXXX drivers that should be installed on your machine so you can browse the resource CD and install the drivers. Most likely the following applies:

1) Standard Intel Chipset driver, you can get it from intel.com instead of Dell.
2) The on-board sound is most likely a SoundMax AC97 card.
3) The NIC is probably either an Intel 82450 or a Broadcom 570.
4) The onboard video is an Intel card, the add-on AGP is most likely a Radeon VE or Radeon 7000. If not, try the nVidia GeoForce 4 MX.

I make deployment images of Dell's all the time at work. If you're using the on-board video, Windows Update should have a driver for it if you do a custom update and look at the hardware section. They use the same card in their laptops and their desktops for onboard video.

[chewie8008]

Ok, I got the correct display driver installed as well as the correct modem driver installed.

I want to thank everyone who has been patient enough to help me out w/ this. I know it got a bit tedious. But I think I got everything back to normal and cleaned out.

Thanks again!

[thevoelk]

Now would be a good time to make an image with something like Ghost. If you have a DVD burne, you should be able to make a bootable DVD with the image within the programs. At least the newer ones.