Dell 8400, XP Setup + nvidia PCIE card

I have a Dell 8400 that is now out of warranty.
The PC works fine. I'm currently running linux on it with no problems.

However, I want to load Windows XP SP2 on it to test out some app.

When I put in the setup disck (Dell OEM Disc XP Pro SP2), I choose to boot to the cd. It then goes on to display "setup is inspecting your hardware" or whatever. The screen then goes blank. I beleive it goes blank because it is trying to put the video card into a mode that it doesn't understand, or setup doesn't support the video card.

I called dell and they told me the video card is bad and I have to call out of warranty support. Out of warranty support wants $ just to talk to them. I know the card isn't bad. I can use FC5 or a live linux cd with this box and it is fine.

The card is a PCIE card.
nVidia 256MB PCI Express x16 GeForce 6800

The display is a NEC MultiSync LCD 1920NX
I've tried with both DVI and VGA cables.

Why won't the setup CD work? Any ideas?

Phish~

You "orrible, orrible, little man" ................ you went and loaded that vile *nix stuff on a beautiful Dell Windows box?:D

I would guess the problem is that the Dell, castrated, OEM version of XP SP2 cannot handle the fact that there is another OS on the box?

That would possibly explain the rather strange behaviour?

Did you tell Dell that you had trashed their 'Doze and installed linux?:p

If you wipe the entire drive and load it, it should work. Then load *nix as the second boot. I am guessing that you are trying to get XP to boot second?

Just a few thoughts mate:)

I'll format the drives. (two 250gig drives setup in an array.)

However, I've never had this issue before. I did tell Dell that I can get Linux to boot on it. They also recommended that I try another video card just to get the system loaded and then putback the PCIE card.

Ah!

What kind of array? RAID0 or RAID1?

I would take a bet that if you got a retail XP CD it would probably work:(

DRM can be a pain in the butt for honest customers as well?

:)

EDIT:

Actually Phish~ I suspect the problem has to do with the fact that you are trying to load Win XP onto a Linux only machine?............'Doze likes to be first in the queue?

I tried formatting the HDs and I took them out of an array. Don't really need it and I'd prefer to have both HDs separate.

The Dell OEM XP Pro discs still won't work. Well, It *sounds* like it's doing something, but I can't see it. I loose the display.

I'm going to try with an XP Pro SP2 volume license disc in the morning. If that works, I wonder if I can just swap it out with the Dell OEM disc after I get to the point where it prompts for setup? I don't want to use a license for that since I already have an OEM license for it.

Linux on there shouldn't matter at all. I'm just going to wipe it. I've done this many times on different machines... That box was just setup to test a LAMP based app that I was thinking about putting into production.

OK, there could be a couple of things going on here:
1st. It’s most likely not your video card
2nd. it could either be your RAID configuration, a bad hard drive, memory or bios setting

First things first. Go into bios and Press Alt- F to load factory defaults in the bios. Press ESC and go to “save/exit”.

If that does not work:

Try a known good Windows XP CD

If that does not work:

Restart the system and when you see the dell splash screen tap F12 until you get the boot device menu. Select where it says “Hard drive diagnostics” or “IDE drive diagnostics” this will probably run for about five minutes giving either a Pass or Fail.

If it all passes:

Next (assuming you have two sticks of memory in the system or more.) remove all but one in Slot 1. And see if you get any further. If you do not. Replace slot 1 with any stick that’s outside of system already (the one's you removed) and try again.

And if that does not work:

Try unplugging one of the hard drives and install on it.

Let me know if any of this works. I am curious as to the result