help with reinstalling

[Rizindon]

ive got a dell optilex gx260 ... .. thats all i can afford nehow its seemed to runnin majorly slow ... like it take ten yrs just for ie to open etc ... so i decided to reinstall ....

but wen i put in xp cd it starts the setup but then bang i get the blue screen of death .... wat can i do im goin crazy here plz help !!

[peat moss]

Have had the problem many times and don't know why , but using a Win98 boot disk and running Fdisk first seems to fix it . If you don't have a floppy drive use a Boot cd like Barts instead .

Then boot from cd with your Win Xp disk and your off to the races .


I should point out that I'v tryed it on all types of setups from PII to P4 's and always seems to work . To be honest I'v seen bad Lan cards or memory sticks cause the same issuses , still try the Fdisk trick first .


http://ubcd.sourceforge.net/

[Rizindon]

how do u run f disk ?!

[vidcc]

Have you done a scan for malware?

If you are doing a complete reinstall instead of an upgrade does the computer have a return to factory settings option when booting up via the hard drive? (try pressing ctrl+f11 once when the dell logo screen displays upon powerup)

[FreeDoom]

how do u run f disk ?!

As peat moss said, you should boot from win98 cd and go into ms-dos. From there you run Fdisk.

Caution though, keep in mind when deleting partitions, anything that's on that partition of the hard drive will be deleted.
Also once the partition is deleted it will not be redetected until you format that partition, so if you delete your primary partition, which is the c: drive, you will not be able to put anything on that drive or even read from that drive until it is formatted.

So if you have data you don't want to loose and want to do a "fresh" install, you should do some backup.

Then you can boot from winxp cd and install.

[Rizindon]

ive dun that deleted all partitions but the bsod comes up wid bullcrapp agen and agen !! the amount of times iverebboted and tried agen its amzin spent like 20 hrs stright now keep crashin etc !!

plz help i gt 2 version of xp cd only one tried and tested but neither will wrk !! both lead to the bsod sumwhere alng the line !!

[Rizindon]

cud an1 also like tell me where i can get a workin cop of xp pro sp2 frm plz ??

[peat moss]

What does the error say ? Missing file can not continue or Setup is inspecting your computer's hardware configuration and then fails ?


Sometimes its just a scratched cd or bad hardware like a HDD or strip of Ram .
The Barts Ultimate Boot cd I linked you to has a few tools to help you such as memory testers and HDD Diagnostic tools . Sometimes all you need to do with a scratched Xp cd is burn a new one . Good luck tho its a great patience tester .