Dell Vostro 200 keep crashing, Help

[gunitrecord]

Dell Vostro SUCKS! dont buy it, anyways

I bought this Vostro 200 last summer for my cousin. They seems to messed it up and i dont know how they did it. Now the computer will just keep restarting and ask me to choose a mode such as safe mode and others but it will restart and comes back with the same message

I tried to press F8 or all other Fkeys to format it, but it didnt work, I also tried to press Control and F11 together, BUt it also didnt work.

So i tried to put my windows XP cd to format it see if it works(note that the systemis original windows Vista). It seems to be formatting good at the beginning, but after it hits 37% it told me something wrong so i skipped it, then another problem comes up and i skipped it again.

so i tried deleting all the files in the drives and tata, i messed it up at here i guess.

unfortunately it didnt work and i guess i messed it up, The 1 year warrenty just expired. What should i do now? this is the message shows up everytime when i turn on the computer

 

[jsawyer1181]

If you ask me I'd say the hard drive may be bad. You said you tried to format it and it said there was an error and you skipped it right? From the sounds of it you said it was during the format? If that's the case then you have a defective hard drive. Windows XP or Vista doesn't make any difference if the drive is shot. Besides most, not all, Vista "certified" machines will run XP as long as they aren't quad core or some laptops wont either. So I would find a way to check the hard drive as it seems you weren't able to complete a successful installation of Windows and therefore you have your error. Check the hard drive and get back here and we shall see what we can do.

 

[gunitrecord]

If you ask me I'd say the hard drive may be bad. You said you tried to format it and it said there was an error and you skipped it right? From the sounds of it you said it was during the format? If that's the case then you have a defective hard drive. Windows XP or Vista doesn't make any difference if the drive is shot. Besides most, not all, Vista "certified" machines will run XP as long as they aren't quad core or some laptops wont either. So I would find a way to check the hard drive as it seems you weren't able to complete a successful installation of Windows and therefore you have your error. Check the hard drive and get back here and we shall see what we can do.

yea, like when i put in the xp cd to format it, I just to instal a fresh copy of XP.
Then when it comes to Choose partition I choose C Drive. I thought it would work since its installing. But it stopped at 37% or some error and i skipped it thought it would work. but it then and it was back to keep restarting mode. Then i choose to format again and this time i choose to delet all the partition and create a new one. and the image said NTLDR pops up. I guess ima try to switch a harddrive see if it work.

 

[jsawyer1181]

Have you tried to clean the CD ROM? Is the XP CD scratched in any way? It sounds like it formats okay but somewhere its having a problem writing the files. It could be the cd, cdrom, or the hard drive. Have you tried using another operating system? I would check the cd and the cdrom drive to make sure they are both in okay shape, and run a test on the hard drive as well. If the hard drive is bad it won't let you write files and if the cdrom or the cd its self are bad it also wont write the files. So a few things to check. Let me know and Ill try my best to help you out.

 

[gunitrecord]

Have you tried to clean the CD ROM? Is the XP CD scratched in any way? It sounds like it formats okay but somewhere its having a problem writing the files. It could be the cd, cdrom, or the hard drive. Have you tried using another operating system? I would check the cd and the cdrom drive to make sure they are both in okay shape, and run a test on the hard drive as well. If the hard drive is bad it won't let you write files and if the cdrom or the cd its self are bad it also wont write the files. So a few things to check. Let me know and Ill try my best to help you out.

nope i havent try to clean the cd rom yet. the xp cd is perfect, no scratch. i dont have anyother format cd besides windows xp. i will check on the rom make sure theres no dust and stuff.

question: how do i run a test on the hard drives? because when i turn on the computer only the black screen would show up and theres nothing i can do besides pressing F2 to boot from bios and choose the configure.

 

[jsawyer1181]

Well if you have a way to find out who makes your hard drive, eg seagate, wd, hitachi, etc. Download their drive utility in DOS format and they should have some guides on how to make a bootable cd and put the utility on there and it should bootup and put you through the steps on how to properly test the hard drive. I would see if you can test it with another cd rom if possible. That could very well be the issue, or the hard drive as you said your cd is okay. So its going to be in that area somewhere. You said when the problem started the computer would just stop responding right? That leads me to think possible hard drive or maybe even ram, but if it was ram the computer would more than likely tell you it was bad on bootup. So I would check the cdrom and the hard drive and see what's going on from that point as something isnt working right.

 

[bomberboysk]

nope i havent try to clean the cd rom yet. the xp cd is perfect, no scratch. i dont have anyother format cd besides windows xp. i will check on the rom make sure theres no dust and stuff.

question: how do i run a test on the hard drives? because when i turn on the computer only the black screen would show up and theres nothing i can do besides pressing F2 to boot from bios and choose the configure.

Download a program called seatools for dos, get the iso and burn it to a cd-r. Boot up it, and run a S.M.A.R.T test and a Long Generic test, see if it passes.

 

[jsawyer1181]

Download a program called seatools for dos, get the iso and burn it to a cd-r. Boot up it, and run a S.M.A.R.T test and a Long Generic test, see if it passes.

I believe you can get that off of the Seagate website and it does work very well. They have instructions on how to make it bootable too. If you need help just post back here and we try our best to help you.

 

[gunitrecord]

hey guys, after all the reseach and busy working, finally i have time to fix it. and i fixed it thanks to all you guys

problem: CHEAP ASS ****ING RAM FROM DELL BROKE DOWN
solution: changed ram.

grhh dell use some cheap ram i dont even know the brand, made from Korea, i guess you pay for what you get. thanks again guys