fdisk trouble

finaddictfred · 05-25-2008, 07:52 PM

First time here and all that. Now..down to business.
Dell E510 2-3 years old
XP sp2
1- master HD drive 0 sata
1-slave HD pata-1 ide
Am trying to format C: drive. Boot the Dell cd from the cd drive and go through the instructions to format and that goes fine. The disk installs some files and then does a reboot. After it boots, it just goes into a boot loop and I have to shut the thing off.
I've tried taking the cd out of the drive, booting the master hd, resetting the factory defaults in the BIOS, and many other things as well. When I reset the defaults I got a floppy drive read error that I had to disable in the BIOS. I also get a drive 1 error when I enable it as well. If this is the wrong area to post this in my apologies. Thanks for any help in getting this resolved
Fred

imsati · 05-25-2008, 09:20 PM

welcome to CF

If you're not overly-familiar with BIOS settings, the easiest way would be to remove (or simply just unplug) whatever HDD C: will not be on and try again. Some things are tricky with a SATA and IDE running at once, including some Recovery CD's. I'm not certain if Dell is among them, but that would be my first bet.

finaddictfred · 05-25-2008, 09:54 PM

I unplugged the slave IDE drive and rebooted and got an error reading drive 3 so I disabled it and rebooted and it still just goes into the same boot loop

imsati · 05-25-2008, 10:04 PM

Maybe a bad CD? have you tried Dell's Support line? Do you have a Recovery Partition you can boot to on the HDD?

finaddictfred · 05-25-2008, 10:18 PM

Dells support had no clue and no I don't have a recovery partition

tremmor · 05-26-2008, 07:55 PM

Im guessing but would be wondeering if it was the battery.

Can you get to the dos prompt at all and type date or time and see if its correct?

Maybe tro booting and keep your hand on the pause button to pause the screen and read everything that comes up during the boot process. Your looking for errors or something of that nature. Sorry, thats the only thing i can think of.

05-25-2008, 07:52 PM	#1 (permalink)
finaddictfred New Member Join Date: May 2008 Posts: 3	fdisk trouble First time here and all that. Now..down to business. Dell E510 2-3 years old XP sp2 1- master HD drive 0 sata 1-slave HD pata-1 ide Am trying to format C: drive. Boot the Dell cd from the cd drive and go through the instructions to format and that goes fine. The disk installs some files and then does a reboot. After it boots, it just goes into a boot loop and I have to shut the thing off. I've tried taking the cd out of the drive, booting the master hd, resetting the factory defaults in the BIOS, and many other things as well. When I reset the defaults I got a floppy drive read error that I had to disable in the BIOS. I also get a drive 1 error when I enable it as well. If this is the wrong area to post this in my apologies. Thanks for any help in getting this resolved Fred

05-25-2008, 09:20 PM	#2 (permalink)
imsati Diamond Member Join Date: Sep 2007 Location: EHT, NJ Posts: 2,644	welcome to CF If you're not overly-familiar with BIOS settings, the easiest way would be to remove (or simply just unplug) whatever HDD C: will not be on and try again. Some things are tricky with a SATA and IDE running at once, including some Recovery CD's. I'm not certain if Dell is among them, but that would be my first bet. __________________ --Jay Gigabyte EP31-DS3L \| E4500 \| Masscool HSF paired with AS-5 80 GB SATA2 x 2 \| e-GeForce 7100 GS \| CM Elite 330 (gorgeous!) Triple Boot: Ubuntu 7.10/XP Home/Kubuntu 7.10 You do realize that everytime PC eye Posts, God kicks a puppy, and every time someone takes his advice, He smothers a kitten in front of a child, right? http://www.computerforum.com/114761-...tml#post922619

05-25-2008, 10:04 PM	#4 (permalink)
imsati Diamond Member Join Date: Sep 2007 Location: EHT, NJ Posts: 2,644	Maybe a bad CD? have you tried Dell's Support line? Do you have a Recovery Partition you can boot to on the HDD? __________________ --Jay Gigabyte EP31-DS3L \| E4500 \| Masscool HSF paired with AS-5 80 GB SATA2 x 2 \| e-GeForce 7100 GS \| CM Elite 330 (gorgeous!) Triple Boot: Ubuntu 7.10/XP Home/Kubuntu 7.10 You do realize that everytime PC eye Posts, God kicks a puppy, and every time someone takes his advice, He smothers a kitten in front of a child, right? http://www.computerforum.com/114761-...tml#post922619

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05-25-2008, 09:54 PM	#3 (permalink)
finaddictfred New Member Join Date: May 2008 Posts: 3	I unplugged the slave IDE drive and rebooted and got an error reading drive 3 so I disabled it and rebooted and it still just goes into the same boot loop

05-25-2008, 10:18 PM	#5 (permalink)
finaddictfred New Member Join Date: May 2008 Posts: 3	Dells support had no clue and no I don't have a recovery partition

05-26-2008, 07:55 PM	#6 (permalink)
tremmor Platinum Member Join Date: Oct 2007 Posts: 705	Im guessing but would be wondeering if it was the battery. Can you get to the dos prompt at all and type date or time and see if its correct? Maybe tro booting and keep your hand on the pause button to pause the screen and read everything that comes up during the boot process. Your looking for errors or something of that nature. Sorry, thats the only thing i can think of.