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New member Username: MilfamPost Number: 1 Registered: Dec-06 | Can anyone tell me why my dell 2400 will not boot up with the re-install disc.I tried to boot from the cd and it freezes i cant continue to reformat.Can anyone please help me,by the way my hard drive is 97% full is this a problem |
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Platinum Member Username: Project6Post Number: 11722 Registered: Dec-03 | It usually is, but nothing you can't work around. What is your OS? |
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Bronze Member Username: TipstirPost Number: 92 Registered: Sep-04 | Sounds like older copy of Windows you're working with. Might be time to upgrade that OS and Hardware. Anything 3 years or older should be replaced. |
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New member Username: SkidoosnowbashPost Number: 2 Registered: Dec-06 | well i dont kno what screen you are freezing at but i have had problems like that befor. my laptop would freez at the windows screen. if that is where it is freezing then unplug all your usb and firewire and it should boot up. and another thing is you might want to format your hard drive |
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New member Username: MilfamPost Number: 2 Registered: Dec-06 | I am trying to re-format that is when it is freezing it starts to load and then gives me the 3 choices to install a fresh copy, r for repair or escape I hit enter to install and then the drive stops reading the disc .I cant do a new format at all what can I do. Sorry its not a boot problem. |
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Silver Member Username: Nd4spd18Post Number: 131 Registered: Jul-06 | "Sounds like older copy of Windows you're working with." Wrong, he is trying to boot from a CD, it doesn't matter what OS is on the hard drive. "Anything 3 years or older should be replaced." Wrong again, hardware doesn't need to be replaced until it fails or can't run new software fast enough. There is no reason to replace something that's in good working order. David, if the CD your trying to boot from is a dell recovery disc, I suggest that you get a real windows CD and try booting from that. If you are using a real windows CD, then the next thing I would suspect is the hard drive. If you haven't done so already, check to make sure the HD data cable connectors are not loose. |
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New member Username: MilfamPost Number: 3 Registered: Dec-06 | Ok i checked the cable and tried a new version of windows xp still same problem it freezes when i get to the three choices to re-install r for repair or f3 to quite is there away i can get around this to install a fresh copy and delete the old copy I can use the version installed but it keeps telling me my hard drive is full cant even defrag,hardly nothing on machine at all no spyware or virius either |
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Silver Member Username: AppzalienCleveland, Ohio US of A Post Number: 117 Registered: May-06 | Get yourself a Win98 Emergency or install floppy and boot to that. At the prompt type "format C: /U" without the quotes. If you know the manufacturer of the hard drive you can go to their site and get a format floppy for that type of drive and boot to that. Once the drive is formated the error should go away. You do have the alternative to delete some of your excess data and remove some programs your not using to make room and add a new secondary hard drive instead. Then you could transfer excess files from your C drive to the new D drive and your ok to go. |
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Silver Member Username: AppzalienCleveland, Ohio US of A Post Number: 118 Registered: May-06 | It just occurred to me that you said there was hardly nothing on the machine at all but was still showing drive full. I had this happen to me once and it was caused by a windows log file that grew out of control (C > Windows > System32 > Log Files > WMI). It actually showed me nothing was there the first time I looked but I used one of those free apps that tells you how many files are on your computer and how much space they take up (space monger I think) and all of a sudden it showed up, windows must have been hiding it. By right clicking directories in turn and selecting properties you can narrow down where the large file is, to delete it, but the space monger program is faster. Heres a link to the last free version. http://www.werkema.com/software/spacemonger.html There are several things which can grow out of control, over taking the hard disk, like system restore (which you can shut off and turn back on to erase the old storage space), your recycle bin if you delete stuff but never empty the bin and so on. |
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New member Username: MilfamPost Number: 4 Registered: Dec-06 | What do i do if i dont have a floppy drive on my machine |
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Silver Member Username: Nd4spd18Post Number: 139 Registered: Jul-06 | Do not listen to Ken Bookman, if your file system is NTFS (which it most likely is if your running XP), you can't format it from a win98 DOS prompt. If you want to reformat the hard drive do this: 1) Download this file 2) Use a CD burning program to burn that image file to a CD. 3) Boot from that CD. When you get to the command prompt type " dir c: ". Usually your hard drive will be assigned drive letter C but not always, so type that command and if you see the contents of your hard drive, C is the right letter. 4) Type " fdisk ". Choose the option to delete a non-DOS partition and follow the instructions. Now try to install windows from your XP disc again, let us know if it works. |
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Silver Member Username: AppzalienCleveland, Ohio US of A Post Number: 119 Registered: May-06 | Your wrong, I have formatted an XP OS drive with a Win98 floppy many times. The floppy doesn't care if the disk has an OS with ntfs or nsf or what ever, but it does format the disk with fat32 which would be replaced with ntfs when you reinstall XP. |
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Silver Member Username: Nd4spd18Post Number: 146 Registered: Jul-06 | Yes, you could use a win98 boot disk to reformat to fat32, but in this case you would not want to. Simply reformatting the file system on the active partition may not solve the problem. That said, David's problem is sounding more and more like a virus or corruption in the master boot record, which would be fixed by reformatting. However, this problem could also be caused if the data that defines the HD partitions becomes corrupted. If that's the case, you would need to delete all partition data using fdisk. Some factory built PCs, including some Dells, have diagnostic and recovery tools stored in hidden partitions on the hard drive (meaning they are invisible to windows, dos, or any other OS installed on the active partition). The only way completely erase all data from the hard drive is to delete all defined partitions. If you run fdisk and choose the option to "view partition information", and it says anything other than "no partitions defined", the HD is not completely blank. |
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Silver Member Username: NikkPost Number: 919 Registered: Sep-06 | Just delete the Partition using the Win98 floppy, then start installing the OS again, it must go to the point of telling you that there's a non partitioned disk, and it will ask you if you want the space to be partitioned... |