BSOD on XP Home reinstall

My Dad is preparing to give his old PC away so he can set up his new imac. He reckons a full format, then reinstall of Windows will be enough security since it's only going to another member of the family. It's a Dell Dimension 9100, with 160GB hard drive and 512MB RAM. His problem is that when he reboots after the install, he doesn't get as far as Windows before it blue screens.

Normally I'd say memory, except it seems very coincidental to happen right now. I remember once having blue screens myself and everyone said "memory" before I system restored it to before some windows updates. I just knew that it had only started on a reboot after updates.

I can take across 1GB DDR RAM from here to test that theory out tomorrow when I go over, or does anyone have oher ideas? The disc must have been the full OS, though there was also a hidden recovery partition plus recovery discs (which seems very strange, why do both?)

I was thinking of taking my XP disc in case it's the actual disc itself, maybe got scratched or whatever. If anyone can add to this I'd be grateful.

Hmmmm,

1. Does it actually complete the Windows reinstall?
2. Is the hidden partition still there?
3. Is it the same version of Windows............I thought the 9100 was supposed to ship with XP Pro?
4. Any BIOS beeps?

EDIT:

5. Can you get into BIOS setup?
6. Do you get the F2 (BIOS Setup) and F12 (Boot menu) when it is starting to boot. These will be white on a black screen?

Actually I think that he might getting to the start of the Windows load to get a blue screen. Are there any messages?

Look in BIOS and see if you can turn of the restart on error option. That might get you a message.

Also see what options the boot menu gives you.

Well, I haven't physically seen this machine and the problem, but as far as I can tell it does complete the install, I assume formatting the one drive inside would get rid of the hidden partition (asked a hardware expert who said he'd never seen a Dell PC where you couldn't just delete the hidden partition by reinstalling XP), yes it's the same version of Windows, could be Pro, I just assumed Home, but either way it's the same disc.

BIOS beeps I couldn't say until I see it, but I think it can get into the BIOS OK.

O.K. Moira, I have a couple of pretty simple beasts to build tomorrow from some old parts (cheapskate has nicked them from the spares cupboard I reckon:D)

Make sure that you take:

1. My telephone number
2. XP CDs
3. The DBAN CD and floppy I sent you
4. A laptop (So you can check your Dad's disks for drivers)

We should be able to sort it with those? ;)

Just give me a call if you hit any problems...............

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The disc must have been the full OS, though there was also a hidden recovery partition plus recovery discs (which seems very strange, why do both?)

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did he reinstall with the actual XP cd? or with the recovery CDs? if he used the recovery cds, it is likely that the partition was recreated. I am doing support for Thinkpads right now, and when we reinstall with our rec cds, it sets the system up exactly as it was when it was shipped. Still has the recovery partition [aka the F11 partition as I have heard some agents call it.]

as far as shipping the Rec CDs and having a recovery partition, you got me there... the only way our customers can have both is either if their recovery partition fails to boot [unless of course the removal of the partition was intentional... ie: installing an alternate OS etc.] or if they pay $45 for the CDs.

For the life of me, I cannot understand why M$ decided to have the system auto-reboot after a BSOD... if it blue screens on boot, there is no way to disable it, and you would have to have a photographic memory, or maybe a good camcorder to catch the error. alright, I better quit before this post gets out of hand... :D :drink:

Out of hand? Extremely useful! You're actually making me wonder whether he thinks he has a proper copy but just has recovery discs ..... anyway, I'll find out tomorrow. Yes, I always disable the default "reboot on error", it's irritating and often doesn't give you long enough to catch the error. 99% of the time there must be no problem whatsoever with the system carrying on!

nihil, I have all those things, and many thanks indeed :) I hope it doesn't get so complicated I need to ring anyone though! Dad has a laptop, but I can't for the life of me think why we'd use it when we could download drivers on his imac - the files could be transferred by a usb key couldn't they? Dad as I was saying elsewhere, doesn't feel the need to do such a grim overwrite - DBAN is really what I want for myself when I part with this AMD dual core. Tomorrow, we'll just give the drive a full format after deleting both partitions hopefully.

As for turning off restart, I don't think this is a particular problem in itself, more that every time he attempts a reboot, it blue screens.

Moira - Really, even if he installs with the recovery discs, it should give him a working copy of the OS the system shipped with. All it does [at least with our systems] is create an image on the HDD, which is the same image that is on the system when it ships. So if it had XP pro, bundled with symantec, AOL, Earthlink, etc. [all of the crap that is free at first, but then bugs the hell out of you to subscribe/buy] that is exactly what you will get with a re-imaging from the CDs. So I don't know that using the cds would be the cause of the problem, unless the cds were defective, or caused some errors while installing... but I would go ahead and try your cds just to be absolutely sure...

Hi westin,

You might like to check out this free app:

http://www.nliteos.com/download.html

It will create bootable installation CDs from those "recovery disks" without all the crapware that you mention. ;)

Thank you very much nihil. That will definitely come in handy. :)

Yeah, PC Answers magazine had a tutorial on how to do that once. Just to update you, they were simple recovery disks, and it was blue screening, just as he said. I wasted time wondering why the extra memory wouldn't go in before discovering his RAM was DDR2 (I'd brought DDR).

I had no way of swapping or changing memory so decided to go ahead with the DBAN disc. I started it, then noticed how long it was going to take, and remembering that he wasn't that bothered about a secure overwrite, cancelled it and began to install XP. It got as far as loading files etc, then couldn't find a hard disk to install to!

Literally, I got a black screen telling me there was no hard drive to put the OS onto. So I rang John, who advised running DBAN .... and I've left it going there. I'm going across tomorrow to keep trying (we're also battling with the new imac which is totally unfamiliar to both of us). I'll check email before I leave, so if anyone can suggest something useful, it would be much appreciated.

I'm sure I didn't loosen any cables during my RAM fitting period, of course I'll check, but I also ran some of his recovery utilities, and the disk was seen by them, every test coming out perfect.

Hi Moira,

I am sorry I forgot to mention that the Dimension 9100 shipped with DDR2 PC4200 memory. Eileen has a Dimension 8100 which uses Rambus RDRAM PC800................. even more exotic!

I think that what must have happened is your Dad will have overwritten the hidden recovery partition when he formatted. The recovery disk is little more than a boot disk that lets you access the recovery partition, so it won't find anything now.

I also suspect that the MBR has been corrupted, which could be why the XP installation cannot find the disk properly.

Overwriting the whole disk should present it with what appears to be a brand new HDD. Normally I would use the HDD manufacturer's diagnostic tool for this, as I think that there is a better chance of error detection and remediation.

However, DBAN should wipe the drive and I would expect it to display messages if there are physical problems with the disk.

One thing to check:

Go into "Set Up" (should be F2) and look for an entry like:

Primary Drive 0...............................................Hard Drive

Open that and make sure that it is set to "Auto"

Scroll down and find the entry:

PC Speaker.........................................On

That should get you any BIOS beep codes.

Then:

Fast Boot............................................Off

You will have a better chance of catching BIOS error messages that way ;)

Thanks nihil! In fact, after 3 days over there, the computer is now over here and in a worse state than ever. At the end of day one, I left it running DBAN because it was blue screening every boot. The next day I arrived to find every boot attempt getting as far as the BIOS (well, the POST I suppose) and then telling me there was no C drive. Attempts to install my copy of XP Pro got as far as the place where you choose a hard drive for the install, then it would say there was "no hard disk" to install the OS to. I spent the rest of that day running check utilities that had come with the Dell (it was still allowing me access to the CD ROM), then went home. Every test (and I did the hard drive tests thoroughly) came out perfect.

Day three - and the next "attack" was to swap memory for DDR2 I had bought ready for the upgrade. However, by accident I noticed the "recovery" disc had advanced as far as formatting the drive (no doubt made accessible again after DBAN), so a thorough format followed by an install was done. It was at this point I realised Dad didn't have restore discs, he had a full copy of XP Home on CD. He'd been right when he had told me he was reinstalling XP from scratch! And I think his "hidden partition" was just the free space showing a discrepancy due to him not altering settings to show hidden files and folders.

Doh! Anyway, just as the install was finishing off, it rebooted! I was back to messages about a missing hard drive. Deliberately rebooting, it did it again. The recovery console wouldn't help because it couldn't find the C drive either. Taking the PC home with me after, I changed over the RAM and hooked it up to monitor and keyboard here.

Now it seems to have packed in altogether. I mean it won't even power on. After swapping kettle leads and plugs a million times, I swapped the RAM back over. So it's as dead as a dodo and I've been told Dell made some of their PCs that had that processor in, with custom PSU's. Even if the cause is a faulty PSU, I won't know if the RAM is even OK until I've shelled out for that. I just know it would not be the end of the serious problem I'd been failing to sort out for 3 days - all for a PC designed for somebody else, and my own ready-to-be-passed-on system needing fixing as well. Is there any hope do you think?

Moira I would put my money on the power supply at this point. Does it give any sign of power when you try to turn it on? Fans spin at all, HDD spin up? Anything like that?

No, but it's like Blackpool inside there! There's a winking red light, a green light near the ethernet cable, and the power button flashes pale orange as it does whenever the PC isn't powered on. This is all the time, not just when I press On.

Hmmmm,

It is a coincidence Moira, but I think that the exact same happened to Eileen's Dimension 8100 a few weeks ago.

I wonder if the HDD has "Deskstar" written on it :D

A quick test............... just disconnect the HDD ribbon cable and Molex (power) and see if it will boot from a CD.

Johnno

Why would I need to disconnect the hard drive to boot from a CD? Anyway no, it's as dead as a dodo, appearing to have power getting to the case, but refusing to boot at all.

More research has revealed this to be a well known bug which a lot of Dell users have suffered from, annoyingly choosing to reveal itself in almost all cases just after the 1 year warranty has expired. Just google "orange flashing power button Dell" and you'll see what I mean. More seriously, in hundreds of articles, forum posts, blogs etc, not once is there suggested anything of any real help. Some people claimed to have done weird things which didn't work for me and had no real logic to them, or else dangerously played around with their electricity supply and I wasn't about to try their offered advice.

Like this guy says, "it is basically basically cheaper for me to buy a new computer than it is to try to troubleshoot this one":

http://blog.plaxoed.com/2006/06/26/dell-problems/

It's almost as if this was a manfacturing bug, the sort of thing that happens once every eight years or so, affecting a batch of computers, which if it occurs within the first few months has the company recall them. The fact that these victims were usually out of their warranty period meant it didn't bother Dell at all!

By this time I had tried with a friend of mine, all the solutions we could think of in any case, but if something refuses to power on, your options are limited. This friend of mine brought a definitely working power supply and connected that - no difference. I went through about 15 kettle leads - no difference. I can only be thankful it happened to a PC that had given good service and was about to be given away in any case. Now we can just butcher it and use any handy components - my new rebuild will be happening on Wednesday this week, same friend is coming to help. Can't wait! :D

Hi Moira,

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Why would I need to disconnect the hard drive to boot from a CD?

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You don't, it is a truncated form of trouble shooting. Normally you start with the bare minimum until you can get it to boot. In this case it looked like it might be a power or HDD problem. That is why I mentioned Deskstar (or Deathstar as we know them in the trade :D) Quote from Dell certified engineer:

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f you’re having HD problems check if the HD is a Maxtor, if so, it’s probably bad. 90% of the replacements I’m given to install are now Western Digital or Seagate. 99% of the ones I’m replacing are Maxtor. If it’s out of waranty and you know the difference between SATA and IDE, you can change it yourself fairly inexpensively.

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The quickest way to stop it drawing power or "muttering darkly" to your other components, is to unplug the two cables.

;)

I think combined with the fact that this PC was just going to be given away, I've now come to the end of what would be the sensible road in terms of spending time on it.