Dell Compuer and booting up problems....

[Joe Public]

Hi

I am stuck with a computer problem.

My Mum has a Dell computer and was getting the alert cover previousley removed message and the computer would not boot up.
It asked me to reset the date and time which I did and then still failed to boot up.

I went on the t'internet and found out hoe to turn off this message which I did. Bu now I have the same problem without the message.

The Starting windows banner comes up and counts to the top. The Dell screen comes on but the white bar only goes about 1/4 of the way up.
The whole process then just repeats itself.

Please could someone help?

Thank you in advance

Graham

[Dr Lobster*]

we need to findout if this is a hardware or software problem:

first, is it possible to boot your computer with your system restore cd or boot disk?

also, have you tried reseting your bios configuration to the defaults?

if your system boots then we know that it's most probably a broken windows installation, which should be repairable using your operating system cd.

[Joe Public]

hi

Thanks for that.

But

I dont think my mum has the OS disk.
Can I download one?

There is nothing on the comp to save (as my mum is good and works from floppys) so doing a clean install is not a problem.

[Dr Lobster*]

hi

Thanks for that.

But

I dont think my mum has the OS disk.
Can I download one?

There is nothing on the comp to save (as my mum is good and works from floppys) so doing a clean install is not a problem.

i think you'll be able to download an iso for your favourite windows os via p2p.

even a retail windows disk will do - what we need to establish is if it is your windows installation or a hardware at fault.

for testing purposes it will be sufficient to download a live linux distro on a cd, just to see if the computer will get that far.

if it does, we can the go down the route of fixing your windows installation.

have you tried booting it in safe mode, and using the 'last known good configuration' by pressing f8 just before the windows xp os loader screen appears?

[Fireboy]

I can't be done with PCs any more these days - it's fault after fault. My old PC has a faulty graphics controller, and as a result refuses to run XP for more than 20 seconds. I can't be arsed to get it fixed (and I'm not going to attempt to fix it myself). And that's not even the start of it. There's another two downstairs which are buggered, one had an exploding transformer (and damaged all else with it) and the other was shit to start with, is as slow as hell and refuses to install from CD. How on earth the poor 386 has survived is beyond me.

Perhaps I'm just taking the easy option by using a Macintosh, but the idea of working with computers as an occupation (which was always what I wanted to do, until I actually took a Computing course) depresses me so much I don't think I could ever go back to that DIY-PC crash marathon.

You've gotta love them. Apparently... :roll:

[Dr Lobster*]

in fairness, the reliability of the wintel platform has got much better in recent years, and i've never had a blue screen on any of my computers with windows xp.

windows gets a lot of stick because most of the bluescreens and crashes you see are down to badly written drivers. i do think microsoft needs to ensure all drivers are certified and make the process easier and more affordable for developers because this is clearly the problem.

as far as hardware faults are concerned and as somebody who deals with bulk buying i have seen a distinct fall is build quality in recent years (mostly because the margins on prebuild pc's are so small) and i don't think this is going to get any better in the short term for lower-end kit.

[Fireboy]

in fairness, the reliability of the wintel platform has got much better in recent years, and i've never had a blue screen on any of my computers with windows xp.

XP isn't too bad - I've had one blue screen (when attempting to install more RAM, never suceeded, it's still got 128mb). It's the shit that people write for Windows that annoys me.