eggy

Hi Wolfey You are right, I did not do this as the system belonged to my partner 2 years before I met him so it was kind of impossible for me to do. Anyway it seems I have discovered my problem now and I am resolving it. Thankyou all for the tickings off and for teaching me a few things I didn't already know. Kind Regards Eggy

Hi Bee I didn't realize that sorry, I thought the COA was with the computer not the disk. I am trying Dell to see if I can get the disk off them as the pc was purchased from them with the OS already on. Thanks Eggy

Hi Wolfey Thanks for that. I am just wondering if I need to go to that expense, I have a genuine COA/sticker on the system but just need a genuine disk to go with it. Eggy

:o Hi All Can someone please tell me which disk I should purchase to do a full install of XP Home rather than an upgrade to XP Home I'm not too sure which to buy, I was thinking of purchasing one off ebay if anyone could link me to exactly what I need Eggy

I don't know if this will be of any help I have got onto a screen after pressing F8 on starting and got "Windows Advanced Options" Safe mode Safe with networking Safe with command prompt Enable boot logging Enable VGA mode Last known good configuration (tried this and didnt work) Directory services restore mode(Windows domain controllers only) Debugging mode Disable automatic restart on system failure Start windows normally Reboot Return to OS choices menu Starting in any of the safe modes does not work, last known good config does not work Eggy

Hi Goku I am assuming you want me to do that on his system and not on my working system, Trouble is his wont boot up to download and do that, or am I just being thick? Eggy

It isn't option one on there, no disks are in the pc. The second option is kind of going over my head. Just out of curiosity I wonder if any of you have come across this scenario before: My fella bought his pc direct from Dell, but when I clean installed it last time, the COA which is on the rear of the case wouldn't work, it kept saying it was wrong, I had to use the COA off my old system. It seems very strange to me, and he has never had it to anyone for repairs of any kind. Why would that happen? Back to the point, I will go through option 2 but I don't think I will be able to follow the steps as its saying to make a boot disk on floppy and my system doesn't had a floppy drive> Eggy

Hi Goku I will look at that now Eggy

Hi Nev The disk is a SP2 OEM Edition, bootable. I have to confess I got this off a torrent site, but do have original COA licence that came with the pc. I find it so frustrating that when buying a system with pre-installed windows you never seem to be given the disk,,,,, I know some systems allow you to make your own recovery disks when starting them up for the first time, which my system did, and I also have a recovery section built into it but my fella's didn't have either and no disk. This disk I have used sucessfully on 2 prior occasions then just had to download a driver for the sound. Eggy

I turn on the pc, the first screen comes on "DELL" showing the press F12 for setup and F2 i think it is for boot menu, and i can press F8 for starting in safe mode etc but it still wont start from there. Then it goes onto the windows logo screen with the little progression blips below it, then instead of going to the next screen which is blue and says "welcome" it just goes black and wont progress from there. Eggy

Hi Nev Sorry, I didn't see your post until I just finished writing the essay, the hard drive is in the system and ready to go, or not go as the case seems to be. Eggy

Hi Bee Just so that I get this straight in my head, are you saying that the other hard drives which also have the same version of windows (XP Home) will never run on his pc because it wasnt installed on the hard drives while they were in his pc? Regardless of what I have done (swapping hard drives around etc) the same hard drive the problem started with behaves in the same way it did prior to being removed when it is replaced. One of the other hard drives I think is dead as it just shows a blue screen and I am unable to do anything on it in terms of entering any set up or boot menu's. I was convinced that it was a virus of some kind after reading up about the "Dr Watson" thing and it saying that Acebot can kind of hide and cause the probs he was having as it did boot up fine after doing a clean install of windows and it booting up fine. At that point it was just a case of putting our security and programs back onto the system which I have done a few times prior to this without problems. It was only after installing them that I had to reboot on one of them to complete the installation that it then failed to reboot properly then leading me to think it was the hard drive that was the problem rather than a virus. Anyway back to the point, I did as you gathered: "From what I gather you did the install onto what I will call hard drive 1. When you ran into problems you tried hd2 and hd3." But before removing the hard drive and trying the others, I tried to do a clean install again with the bootable disc which I have used twice before without problems, but it wouldnt boot from the disc as it had previously which it did on its own accord, I tried also by going into the setup and applying the "boot from cd" option and still no joy. No matter what option I choose it will not boot, ie: Safe mode Safe mode with networking Last configuration that worked and so on. I can get into the boot mentu and also the setup menu but that is as far as it goes other than trying to boot and the screen going black after the windows logo screen after the setup screen. How would I go about trying to format the hard drives that I have spare, I am sure one of them is a sound drive but I am assuming that I would have to put it in his system to wipe it and as it wont boot from the rom I don't see how I can use the disc to format the drive and do the clean install on it. I am so frustrated with it! Eggy

Hi All Firtsly I am just trying to work out if this is a hard drive problem with the possibility of it being something else. My other half was having problems with his pc locking/freezing up and showing the "Dr Watson" error when trying to open anything on the control panel etc. After reading up about it I came to the conclusion that it would be easier to do a clean install of XP Home rather than all the messing about trying one thing and another. It had a clean install about 3 months ago which I did and had no problems whatsoever, yet this time, everything seemed fine, xp loaded and booted up no problem and I then put PCGuard on, the anti-virus etc, a game that I have on my pc and that the other half has had on his (we have both used it for around 2 years and no probs) AOL, all was fine except the display, the windows too big, I tried to alter this but it was being an ass, so I was leaving that till later. So after all that I needed to reboot which was when my problems started, the first screen came on where u can enter setup etc, then the windows screen came on, the little progress thing under the windows logo was going along as usual, but after this instead of the windows going on to the next bit, the screen just goes black and it stays that way! http://www.buildyourown.org.uk/forums/forumimages/icon_smile_angry.gif I thought maybe there was a problem with the hard drive, so I have put a different hard drive in off a working system and still it would not boot up, I also tried another hard drive in it that is redundant at present and still no progress,,,, it seems that no matter what hard drive is in it wont boot but on top of that, his hard drive wont boot up in the other system either I have considered using some parts from my old system to replace the duff ones in his but I am guessing it will be unlikely that will work. His system is a Dell and mine is an old EMachine but with an asrock mobo in it, which incidentally turns itslef on as soon as the PSU is plugged in and it wont shutdown, I have to turn the power off http://www.buildyourown.org.uk/forums/forumimages/icon_smile_sad.gif Any help or advice please? Thanks in advance

Hi All I'm new to this site and hoping to be able to repair my other halfs pc with everyones help :cool: Lynne