joddle

Wow so much help - many thanks. To clarify - I do in fact have two HDDs - each one was the primary drive on the same machine but one was loaded with XP (ie the older drivce) and the new one loaded with W7 - so each can exist on its own and will run if loaded into the same place in the drive bay of the PC concerned. I have been looking at options and it seems perhaps I should consider setting up a virtual machine rather than dual boot but have never doen this before so would be a first time thing. ALso looking at the programme mentiones before (EasyBCD) and thought perhaps it may be able to produce a loader which would identify each hard disk if I choose to keep the two disks intact! Any views on that?

I have a mixture of PCs on a workgroup - some running W7 and others with XP - some cant be upgraded to W7 so XP will staye on those for the moment. I have one W7 PC where I keep losing one of the other PCs - i.e. it does not appear on the list of networked PCs although on all the other PCs (w7 and XP) it does appear. What is going on and how do I make the PC see the missing one?

The bios was not able to determine two bootable disks - worth trying though so thanks.

Many thanks to the above two people - the situation is that W7 is now installed and activated on a brand new disk in the machine - but that disk is pretty large so can easily be partitioned for two operating systems. Its just that the old HDD wass in use in that machine until earlier today so is already is set up for XP on the machine with all the drivers etc. Its how to effect a dual boot that I'm new to and so will require some hand holding for that part.

I have some Dell 755s which I have recently updated to W7 32 bit. All are working fine apart from I find some of my most needed software won't run under W7 so I am considering making two machines dual boot for XP and W7 so I can still use the old software fir the time being. On one of the machines I have fitted a new HDD to install W7 buit I still have the old drive with XP intact. As I have room for two HDDs in the machine can I simply use these two drives and create a dual boot machine - and if so how?

I wil report back after the 30 day period to say if its stopped or not.

Well I have now tried it on one of my laptops - I have obtained a Dell recovery W7 SP1 disk and tried a new install on the D400. It all loaded without a hitch and never once asked for the serial from the COA (which I do have) I have been running the pc for a few days and some 145 updates later it is still running fine. The only issues I had was finding drivers to get it working properly but now even thats OK!

I was surprise at first about having genuine software but a Dell engineet told me that this is quite OK. He explained that Dell have a OEM licence and that is embedded into the each machine so when you use a proper Dell reinstall disk, that is recognised and the installation will work fine. If you use the same disk on another non Dell machne then you do in fact get asked for the serial number. I think that has to be right as I have MS genuine advantage activated and it obviously does not seem to think I have done anything wrong over the past 6 or more years!!!! What I am not sure of is does that same system apply to W7? Not to sure whether to have all machines running W7 64 bit - the laptops won't anyway so I am going to need 64 and 32 bit versions and the machines I already have with W7 are 32 bit. I trust they all will still work on the same "workgroup" as they do now as they all share many resources such as printers and scanners etc.

Thanks Nev - The Dell XP reinstall disks will work on any Dell PC and load the OS without need for any serial code at all!! - As Dell aslo do W7 reinstall disks I wondered if they work the same way - As you say maybe I will need to contact Dell on that I think but wondered if anyone had experience of this! - I have checked all my PCs and they will all run either 64 or 32 bit W7.

I have several Dell machines some with XP and some with W7. Due to the future demise of XP I am about to upgrade all the XP machines to W7 with my Dell W7 reinstall disc. When I did a mass install with XP using the XP reinstall discs I did not have to input a licence code as somehow Dell build this into their bios. Is this the same with W7 or will I have to get new licence codes for all the machines?

Thanks for all the suggestions - have tried the links and frustratingly it all seemed there would be an answer but in the end it came to nothing. It seems W8.1 and especially RT are just not supported for my printers - criminal I think - or someone's ideas of an easy way to make people buy new equipment they really don't need....

I think its a X4650 - we got it in Oct 2011 from our local IT superstore.

If you have any older printers then beware. I discovered none of my printers will work with w8. I for one won't be upgrading beyond w7 for some good time yet - unless someone produces drivers for perfectly good kit.

Yss its a real B-----r . But also there should be some pressure put on manufactuers to keep their products usable for a certain persiod of time after introduction. We only got the Lexmark just over 2 years ago and already it can't cope! Admittedly the Laserjet is a bit older but these machnes are designed to go on and on so we might reasonably expect a driver for any OS that is current to be available. Is there no body which monitors this!!!! At least Mictosoft ought to be putting pressure on the big printer firms to come up with solutions - or ensure their OSs are capable of running older drivers. At the end of the day its only a software issue so should not be impossible to overcome - it just needs the will!!!!! A marketnig opportunity for someone perhaps if the printer firms don't do something!!

Having been given a neat little Microsoft Surface as a birthday resent I was pretty happy until I discovered I can't connect to any of the printers on my home workgroup which runs from a number of PCs both XP and Windows7. Normally connecting a PC to the workgroup has been no problem and all the connected devices funcion fine (HP LJ 1300 and Lexmark X4650) - but not with W8.1 it seems!!! In fact the help pages all say my devices are not compatible with this OS - what a stupid thing to do ! ! ! ! ! Make a new OS which cant acess or use normal and traditional printers! Anyway this has got me thinking. Has no one come up with a software solution to allow you to port pages to one of the workgroup PCs and print from there using its own printer driver? it cant be beyond the wit of someone out there surely. I for one a not going to invest in new printers just because W8 cant access them and I suppose many others won't either. In fact its simply made my decision to upgrade my XP machines all that simpler - I will be going for W7 not W8! and much cheaper too!

I have a small workgroup at home with 4 PCs wired to a router and a few more on the wirelss - most are fine but the wired Dell 755s all want to "wake up" when I use one of the other PCs. Its a problem as the PCs seem to want to start up - the fans start there is some clicking and lights flash - then they stop and are quiet again unil I use the another PC. I had this problem a few years back and someone told me how to fix it by adjusting a setting on the extended bios (MBEx ) which worked 100% - but now I have had to reinstall two PCs due to HDD failure and so the problem is back and I cant remember exactly what I have to do to the settings in the MEBx to stop the other PCs trying to wake up. - I know it was something very simple - help please!

I thought I had solved everything but now the issue has come back to haunt me. To recap the situation is: a) I have several Dell 755s, - very similar but with different processors 2,2gb, 2,4gb and 3gb b) All have been running XP pro - two in English and one in Spanish - no problems at all c) I have Dell reinstall disks only for the English OS d) Ealier in the year the Spanish PC failed with a HD issue e) The dell diagnostics comes out fine - no issues found f) On trying to reinstall the OS from an Spanish XP disk loaned to me the PC crashed with a blue screen as soon as it finshed loading the temp files - ie at the stage is says "starting windows" I thought I must have a PC problem as the same disk loads up fine on all my other machines. However when I tried the UK version of the Dell Reinsall disk with SP3 it loaded that system perfectly and runs fine. Yesterday another freiend loaned me another XP system disk with a VL licence code but this failed at the same point as before - ie all the files appear to load bue then when it says its going to "start windows" it crashes. I have tried a new HDD and thats not the issue - I have run memory tests and all checks out - I can load from the SP3 version of the reinstall disk but not from any other types of XP OS disk I have tried even when I have good licence codes. So the big question what can be going on? - its only this one machine casuing a problem - all the others are fine! Is there something built into Dells which can cause this problem? Can the bios or extended bios have an effect? Is there a setting or tweek somewhere I am missing? At the moment the machine is happily running without any issues with the UK version of XP pro from the Dell sp3 reinstall disk - I have tried to get a spanish version of the reinstall disk but can only fine one with SP2 - and here is the rub, when I tried loading a UK Dell reinstall disk with SP2 - guess what - it crashes at exatly the same point!!!! Yet that CD also loads fine on all the other machines!!!! There something very odd somewhere - any ideas at all? and what other tests can I do?

Hi Nev - and thanks for the advice - my main PCs are Dell Optiplexes, 755s and 780s all have better than 2.2gb dual core processors and all will take 32 or 64 bit versions of W7 so I will be using 32 bit on some and 64 bit on the rest. The laptios are getiing old now but funciton well - all have 2gb of ram (the max) so may be OKis under W7 - but with 4 laptops to replace that is a very seconday thing which is why I wanted to eep XP going on them. Currently I have a mix of W7 and XP on the desktops and they all integrate nicely over a workgroup along with the laptops.

I thought it was sorted too - for the most-part the fix seemed to have worked quite well but there are loads of niggles - eg when I click on the "search" option from the start menu nothing happens - a few other shortcuts also behave oddly. I thought I had found a "retail" version in Spanish which I could have changed to OEM but it turned out to be a "volume licence" disk so the PID fix does not work as it works only on the "retail" versions which I also cant find a copy. The Spanish disk has a COA number but it has already been used so not a lot of good to me - alas! Am keeping an eye on ebay - so hoping a disk will come up soon - but in the longer run will be changeing to W7 and I think those disks are all multi lingual anyway!

Does anyone know where I can get hold of a Spanish Dell OEM XP reinstall disk - copy or original ? I have plenty of English ones but can't find my Spanish one which is neded to do a reinstall following a disk failure. Any help much appreciated.

Thats what I thought - many thanks for confirming - it seems the "conversion trick" worked really well then.

I had a PC loaded with a spanish version of XP SP3 fail onmy the other day - HDD had gone. Anyway soon found I did not have a Spanish verison of an install disk although I had severla UK language ones. Tried the Fleabay to get a Spanish Install disk but no luck then read an article on the web on how to change the language of the OS so decided to gove it a try - nothing to lose, if it did not work I would load an English version until I could find another solution. The fix was to load the UK version - then change tjhe language keys to spanish ones in the registry, the reboot, then load a Spanish SP3. This all worked really well apart from the fact on the "Indicio" (Start) menu a few of the items are still in English - eg "My Documents", "My Videos", "My PIctures", "My Computer" and "My Network places" - I assume thats because the folders are named so but is there any way this can be changed without upsetting the whole system too much?

You hit the nail on the head - after two days of fruitless messing about, the PC is up and running normally (well almost). The problem seems to have been in the install CDs after all - all 3 of them!!! They all work fine on my other PCs but not on this one for some strange reason. I remembered that some were actualy copies of the original Dell disk but with SP3 slipstreamed onto them so when I tried other disks I got the same problem. Now I have found I have another Dell XPsp3 install disk so tried that and hey presto all loaded fine apart from one thing. My new installation is in English but I need Spanish! So does anyne know where to get a Spanish version of a Dell XP SP3 install disk? - Looked on ebay but cant find one - so maybe I'll just have to go straight to W7. Thanks to all for your help and suggestions - Problems now almost resolved!

Well I tried it and nothing different - with a new HDD ther is apparently no issue with the PC according to the dignostics. I even tried the re-install disk on another machine to check there was no error there, but it loads fine to the install screen - so its not the problem either. So what happens after the install or safe mode reaches the point wher it says "setup is starting windows" because that is when it always fails and never gets to the setup menu?