Dell computer problem

[Dick Adair]

I have a 3 year old Dell dimension with a 2.6 processor and a 80 gb drive. It boots to a "unmountable boot error". Is this a defective hard drive error and if so can I replace the drive without all the Dell crap on it. The unit came preloaded from Dell with XP and I have no disks for reloading. Thank you for any help you can offer.

[Matt Meiser]

You can reinstall the OS of your choice. About that time Dell got the bright idea that there was no need to ship a restore or OS CD with the computers. Apparently there was software to make your own, but the note to do so was buried in the documentation. When my hard drive failed, they ended up sending me a bunch of CDs for everything. In continuation of their intelligence, each CD was sent on a different day, via DHL overnight. I got packages from DHL for almost a week straight.

You can just buy a hard drive from the retailer of your choice. It seems like between Best Buy, Circuit City, and Staples there's always a good deal. If not, Newegg.com has great prices and fast service.

[Jim Becker]

Yes, you can use the hard drive of your choice. Just be sure to purchase one with the same kind of interface that your current (dead) drive uses. About three years ago there was still a transition going from the IDE world to SATA. You need the right type of drive for your drive controller and cables. You'll also need the operating system CDROM for a full new install. If you don't want to add memory and potentially replace your video card, try to get a copy of XP to use. You may need a key, too, as the Dell key on the label may not work with a non-Dell issue copy of the OS.

[Skip Weiser]

It could be that just the Boot.ini file is corrupt. Before you go out and buy a new hard drive, if you have access to another pc that's online, you could try to make an XP boot CD and see if that works.

Here's a Google search for "XP Boot CD".
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&q=XP+boot+CD&btnG=Search


Hard drives are pretty cheap these days though but you'll need one preloaded with an OS, or you'll have to buy the OS separate since you don't have any disks. I think I'd try making a boot CD first if it were me.

Just one man's opinion.

Skip

[Matt Meiser]

On the OS--I've never seen one preloaded with an OS, even a replacement from Dell. But buying a hard drive is a qualifying purchase for buying an OEM version of the Windows which will cost about $90 for XP Home. Newegg sells that, but I don't think you'll find it at a big-box retailer. Technically though you already own a license. Its just a matter of whether or not Dell will send you a CD. I'd give them a call before buying anything.

[Skip Weiser]

You can buy Seagate's preloaded with Linux, but that won't help Dick.

There's a used 80Gb Maxtor on ebay with Windows installed starting at $7.00, item number 250247178299. You can also buy boot CD's on there. I guess the remedy depends on your budget.

I thought for sure that I had seen new hdd's for sale that had Windows preloaded. A Google search didn't turn up any though. My mistake, sorry about that.

Skip

[David G Baker]

I have two new HP computers with no software/OS back up disk but has instructions on making your own. So far I have ruined 6 or 7 DVD disks trying to make my back ups, each time on both computers there is an error message that states that the writable disks have problems and can't be written to. I have used 4 different brands of disks and get the same error message.
Like Dell, HP doesn't seem to want to make it easy for customers to recover from HD failures.

[Mike Henderson]

I have two new HP computers with no software/OS back up disk but has instructions on making your own. So far I have ruined 6 or 7 DVD disks trying to make my back ups, each time on both computers there is an error message that states that the writable disks have problems and can't be written to. I have used 4 different brands of disks and get the same error message.
Like Dell, HP doesn't seem to want to make it easy for customers to recover from HD failures.
I had that problem with an HP laptop and eventually took the laptop back to the dealer and got a new one. All HP would offer was to send me a boot DVD. My position was that if the boot disk wouldn't write, there was something wrong with the DVD writing and I wanted it fixed.

Mike

[Chuck Wintle]

It could be that just the Boot.ini file is corrupt.



I agree the boot.ini file may be corrupted in which case you need to have an xp disk to boot from to get the the repair console.

Or you could download the UBCD ISO file to create a bootable CD which contains many useful utilities including a utility that can verify and restore the MBR. Google UBCD to find the website.

I would not write off the hard disk just yet until its proven the disk is really dead.

Also the drive should be "seen" by the BIOS of the computer. If it is then it indicates the drive may still be good. HTH :D

[Steven Hardy]

I agree the boot.ini file may be corrupted in which case you need to have an xp disk to boot from to get the the repair console.

Or you could download the UBCD ISO file to create a bootable CD which contains many useful utilities including a utility that can verify and restore the MBR. Google UBCD to find the website.

I would not write off the hard disk just yet until its proven the disk is really dead.

Also the drive should be "seen" by the BIOS of the computer. If it is then it indicates the drive may still be good. HTH :D

I agree.....there is between 4-5 files required during the initial part of the boot : boot.ini,ntdetect.com,ntldr,io.sys and \system32ntoskrnl.exe .
If by using a bootable cd ,you are able to replace with the proper versions,youy may be able to manually restore the disk os bootability.

[Steven Hardy]

I have two new HP computers with no software/OS back up disk but has instructions on making your own. So far I have ruined 6 or 7 DVD disks trying to make my back ups, each time on both computers there is an error message that states that the writable disks have problems and can't be written to. I have used 4 different brands of disks and get the same error message.
Like Dell, HP doesn't seem to want to make it easy for customers to recover from HD failures.

I suspect Microsoft would not like it if either company "made it easy" :)

[Dick Adair]

The fix was, I installed the drive as a 2nd drive in another computer, and during boot, windows chkdsk ran 3 diags and found 16 kb of defective sectors and fixed it. It apprently worked because I reinstalled it and it booted fine. Thanks for all the suggestions.

[David G Baker]

I have made up my mind that if and when I have major problems with the new computers I am going shopping in the produce department, come home with a couple of Apples and get rid of the Lemons for good.

[Steven Hardy]

The fix was, I installed the drive as a 2nd drive in another computer, and during boot, windows chkdsk ran 3 diags and found 16 kb of defective sectors and fixed it. It apprently worked because I reinstalled it and it booted fine. Thanks for all the suggestions.

Way to go!!!How I long for the good old days when you could do it with a floppy!!!! (NOT!!!!!)

[Stephen Beckham]

Way to go!!!How I long for the good old days when you could do it with a floppy!!!! (NOT!!!!!)

A what???

I've still got some 5 1/4" and one 8" floppy from my college days.. Keeping them so I can show the kids where I could stick 270Kbytes or 512Kbytes in my day... Should have stuck that one on the "remember when" thread...:eek:

[David G Baker]

I still have my 20 meg hard drive that I paid $500 for and had to add another $50 to modify it to work on a Tandy 1000.

[Curt Harms]

The fix was, I installed the drive as a 2nd drive in another computer, and during boot, windows chkdsk ran 3 diags and found 16 kb of defective sectors and fixed it. It apprently worked because I reinstalled it and it booted fine. Thanks for all the suggestions.

If it were me, I'd get this (http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/image-for-linux-ss.htm) and make your own restore disks. I've used it a few times to restore or move operating systems to new hard drives and it works well! It not only backs up the operating system but any applications and data as well. This is sold as shareware and uses Linux so I can back up a Windows partition without having Windows running. The CD is bootable so set the BIOS so the CD/DVD drive boots before the hard drive. You don't have to be a Linux person to use it, arrow keys or single letters and you're good to go.

HTH

Curt