Tootech

Hi, its sounds like a hardware fault, rather than a fault caused by the AOL install. Disconnect the power adapter, remove all your adapter cards, remove the battery. Press the power button and hold it for about 20 seconds, let go. Plug in the mains adapter only, leave the battery out, and don't plug any other cards in. Press the power button, and see if it will start. If it does, either the battery or your wireless card is seriously faulty. If it does not, it is most likely something internal at fault.

Those CD's won't reinstall Windows, don't bother with them. Just going back to Starbuck's link, did you try pressing F10 as soon as the PC starts? Thats not when Windows starts, but as soon as you press the power button. Press it a few times, it should start Recovery Angel and walk you through a full Windows restore.

Post the Dell Service Tag and someone will look up your machine spec for you

I think he should do an ipconfig /release prior to renew.

Try updating the network driver - if you need help finding it post the computer make/model, or motherboard model number.

Hi Starbuck, arn't you the security guy over at CHF? I used to over there, called Hatsoff, sure you know the rest......:)

Another wipe tool is Boot n Nuke Darik's Boot And Nuke | Hard Drive Disk Wipe and Data Clearing All of the freeware products will do a good job, only clever police types could retrieve data after that. Even then, files are not often available, more filenames, part files and date/time stamps.

JB's link shows you how to dual boot from one drive - its a good solution, I prefer the 'using two drives' method. If one goes wrong, the other isn't damaged. Way to do it is to unplug your exisiting drive for now to safeguard the installation you have running. Then connect your new drive, install the O/S etc. When you are finished, connect up the other drive again, so both are connected, go into the BIOS and choose which one you want to boot first - probably the one you use most. To boot from the second drive, use the one time boot menu to select the correct drive. One time boot menu is normally F12, F11 or F8 - press it when your PC boots. I haven't detailed the drive connection steps as there is no mention of IDE or SATA. Post more info, and what mainboard or system model you have and I'll try and dig out more details to help you.

I'd say its more likely to be the inverter - laptops tend not to have a separate backlight, it is built into the LCD panel. The inverter can be changed by removing the front bezel of the screen and often it is sat at the bottom connected by two sets of wires. Probably cost you about £40 UK money, with a £30 ish fitting charge.

Go back to Device Manager and right click over the SM Bus, update the driver and allow Windows to connect to the Internet to find the driver - it might pick it up from there.

The chkdsk is the first port of call - it checks files/folders for errors, bad sectors etc and puts right what it can. If that doesn't work then I'm afraid we are back to Randy's repair install. I've found a more graphical description of the repair install. Repair Windows XP - How to Perform a Repair Installation of Windows XP - Part 1 of 2

Type chkdsk /r and press Enter. There is a space between the chkdsk and /r. Leave it to do its stuff and when fisnished type Exit and press Enter. Reboot and see if it runs.

If you are using something like Knoppix as your Linux CD you will need to make your target disk writeable. Right click over the drive (icon on desktop?) and select "Change read/write mode" or something similar, make it writeable and you should be good to go. Another way of doing it is using the BART boot CD - run a Google for it, it runs a Windows bootable environment and is easier to use. Yet another is the Avast bootable CD - its a paid for product but you can get a trial by emailing them.

XP v Win 7 - no competition, for everyday computing Win 7 wins every time. Pentium D - had its day, I'd take a new Intel any day. 1 TB hard drive - most users get to use no where near that much space - I'd say its fine. eSATA useful for newer, faster external hard drives for backup. My opinion is that once you have experienced Win 7 on a speedy PC, XP begins to look and feel dated. If you are looking to replace your unit, the Medion is a good choice.

Clean those pins - very carefully. You could do to use IPA alchohol and clean all residue from the CPU, the socket and surrounding area. Silver paste will allow tracking of electrical signals.

First things first - there is no upgrade path from XP Pro to Vista Home Premium. XP Pro is a business O/S, Vista Home Premium is what it says - designed for home use. A clean install is all you can do. Forget the Dell Vista DVD - it is illegal to use it, and whoever advised you is wrong. If the OEM DVD is accompanied with a COA (certificate of authenticity) you can use that if it has not been used on another PC. If it has been used it will not activate and would be a waste of time installing. Bottom line I'm afraid is to back up your data to flash drive/DVD/CD or external hard drive and run a clean install.

Maynard - Malwarebytes won't run. I sorted one of these on an XP machine last week and the rogue deleted the mbam.exe file when it ran - it did the same to Combofix too. The way around it I found was over at bleepingcomputer, and I used a modified .exe file that I think had a different file signature. It looks like there is a better method now - have a look How to remove XP Internet Security 2010, Antivirus Vista 2010, and Win 7 Antispyware 2010

Match has kindly corrected me here - the drive is a laptop drive I reckon, I assumed your machine was a laptop - of course it's not, its an all in one. But....its still not a SCSI, and I don't know why they report as such :confused:

There's no way that is a SCSI drive. It a SATA interface. The documentation for the drive is here Documentation Most SATA laptop opticals are the same excepting the attachment for the drawer cover - yours may be slightly different as it looks like a slot design from the piccies on Google. I'd be tempted to go for the same model if you value the laptop looking 'right'. Try ebay eg this link Dell SONY OPTIARC AD-7640S DVD±RW Dual Layer 1555 1735 on eBay (end time 28-Feb-10 10:32:39 GMT)

Dissolved 02/04/2006 - they are gone....... WebCHeck - Select and Access Company Information :( You can chase up the directors - use the company number to find them and pay about £15 to get the details and chase them up locally if you really wanted to.

The unlock system may well generate some kind of internal key when you install, so on each install you would need to unlock the software with a different code - even though it is installed on the same system. You need to get hold of the software writers I'm afraid.

I agree - I think it is actually a Socket 754, which is older than the 939. No CPU upgrade path I'm afraid.

Thats great, whichever parts of the help you used :) Don't forget that you do need a firewall, so switch Windows Firewall on as a minimum.

Just a thought, do you mean a full reinstall of Windows? Some people refer to that as a reboot......

Need some more info... What version of Windows do you use? Do you use a modem or router? What security software do you use? Does Internet Explorer connect up ok? I think in this case Revo will just invoke the AOL uninstaller, which works quite well - I wouldn't bother with that step for now. The best option here is to uninstall AOL (all versions), uninstall the security you have temporarily (disabling won't do), use any removal tools for your security product, to clear up, check your browser runs ok on the Internet and then reinstall AOL. Once it is all ok, reinstall your security. There is a temporary folder AOL uses for its downloads, that will need deleting after uninstall. Post all the info and we will go from there.