Restore issue

Dirkpitt289

Dirkpitt289

New Member
I have a Dimension 2200 desktop that I'm trying to restore. I place the Dell Operating disk into the Cd and boot to it. the disk will run the blue "setup is loading files" screen. After that it comes to the "Welcome to Setup" screen and I have the option to hit Enter, Repair or Quit. When I choose enter to proceed the screen flickers then comes back to a blank blue screen. Nothing happens. I should be able to proceed with the install but it doesn't.

I thought the hard drive was bad an switched it out only to have the same thing happen.

Any thoughts?
 
make sure your HDD is setup correct in your Bios, once you hit enter its should start the format process and then restore the OS.
what happens when you boot to the hard disk ?
 
I'm "sorta" going through the same thing with a Dell 4100.
Bought it for $25 with no op system and decided to make a 98SE machine with it.

I haven't gotten far with it yet, I'm waiting on parts that should be here Wed.

Since you swapped the HD I image you might need a boot disc to format the HD.
Here's what I was looking at with the 98SE format.
http://www.bucks.edu/~baruffia/mediaserv/win98SEinstall.htm

You didn't say, or I missed what op system you are going to use, but boot discs and info are available here;
http://www.bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm

I also had a page that tells you the order in which you install op system and drivers on Dell, but can't seem to find it, but I think it is linked through this dell support page on drivers here;
http://support.dell.com/support/downloads/index.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=gen

None of this may be of any help to you... I don't know, I'm new to Dell's and trying to restore one myself.
When I first started playing with this dell, I was trying to put xp pro on it, but it didn't have the drivers for the cd rom, so it couldn't see the files on the disc to load them... catch 22
 
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Dirkpitt289 said:
It can't boot because it can't find the boot files
Click to expand...
The boot files will be on the Dell cd you are booting with, and it sounds like it is booting to the cd ok and is crashing when it analyzes the HDD to do the reinstall, you might try to repair your MBR with fdisk /mbr


Freedom said:
I'm "sorta" going through the same thing with a Dell 4100.
Bought it for $25 with no op system and decided to make a 98SE machine with it.

I haven't gotten far with it yet, I'm waiting on parts that should be here Wed.

Since you swapped the HD I image you might need a boot disc to format the HD.
Here's what I was looking at with the 98SE format.
http://www.bucks.edu/~baruffia/mediaserv/win98SEinstall.htm

You didn't say, or I missed what op system you are going to use, but boot discs and info are available here;
http://www.bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm

I also had a page that tells you the order in which you install op system and drivers on Dell, but can't seem to find it, but I think it is linked through this dell support page on drivers here;
http://support.dell.com/support/downloads/index.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=gen

None of this may be of any help to you... I don't know, I'm new to Dell's and trying to restore one myself.
When I first started playing with this dell, I was trying to put xp pro on it, but it didn't have the drivers for the cd rom, so it couldn't see the files on the disc to load them... catch 22
Click to expand...

this dell 4100 should have a pnp cdrom, you should be able to set bios to boot to the cdrom and xp pro should have the drivers for it, XP pro is going to run kinda slow on this p3 but not as bad as using 98 again. :D
 
Freedom said:
I'm "sorta" going through the same thing with a Dell 4100.
Bought it for $25 with no op system and decided to make a 98SE machine with it.

I haven't gotten far with it yet, I'm waiting on parts that should be here Wed.

Since you swapped the HD I image you might need a boot disc to format the HD.
Here's what I was looking at with the 98SE format.
http://www.bucks.edu/~baruffia/mediaserv/win98SEinstall.htm

You didn't say, or I missed what op system you are going to use, but boot discs and info are available here;
http://www.bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm

I also had a page that tells you the order in which you install op system and drivers on Dell, but can't seem to find it, but I think it is linked through this dell support page on drivers here;
http://support.dell.com/support/downloads/index.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=gen

None of this may be of any help to you... I don't know, I'm new to Dell's and trying to restore one myself.
When I first started playing with this dell, I was trying to put xp pro on it, but it didn't have the drivers for the cd rom, so it couldn't see the files on the disc to load them... catch 22
Click to expand...

I've been working on Dells for a long time and never had this kindof issue before. Granted after each OS install I've always had to go get the drivers but the OS itself always has installed without an issue
 
Deepblue said:
this dell 4100 should have a pnp cdrom, you should be able to set bios to boot to the cdrom and xp pro should have the drivers for it, XP pro is going to run kinda slow on this p3 but not as bad as using 98 again. :D
Click to expand...

I bought it to make a 98SE machine.
It's not something I'll be using very often, but I just wanted to keep one around for some of my older apps that don't run well on XP.
I was just trying a copy of xp-pro just to see if it would load up.
I was thinking of building one as cheap as I could for the job when I ran acrossed this I figured it would save a few $, and work well enough IF I can get whatever drivers I end up needing.
It won't be a daily driver. ;)
It has a lite-on burner in it.
 
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