xp problems

winston · Post by **winston** » 17 Jul 2004 6:51 am

A friend recently bought a dell demension 2400 p4,38 gig, 256 ram. For some unknown reason his wife decided that she did not like xp so she tried to install win98 in the machine. I do not know what or how she did it but now there is a big problem. After she found out this did not work she then tried to reinstall xp, that is when she brougt it to me. The computer was in the middle of installing xp so I let it finish. It took about 12 hours. When it finished the computer was so slow I decided that I would reinstall xp. I loaded the factory disc, went through the install process, including deleting the partitions (2), then reinstalled xp. Same results, computer is so slow it is almost useless. I went to the dell site for info, found none. Does anyone have any suggestions before this thing is boxed up and sent back to dell? thanks winston.

Gary Shepherd · Post by **Gary Shepherd** » 17 Jul 2004 8:33 am

You will probably need a few drivers but I'd suggest formatting that hard drive and reinstall XP.

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Gary Shepherd

Sierra Session 12

www.16tracks.com

winston · Post by **winston** » 17 Jul 2004 9:09 am

Gary, thanks for the reply. I have already formatted the hard drive and installed all drivers. xp formats the hard drive when it installs automatically. I deleted and made a new partition and then reformatted.

winston · Post by **winston** » 18 Jul 2004 5:40 am

A new hard drive cured the problem. I thought I would let everyone know.

Bill Crook · Post by **Bill Crook** » 18 Jul 2004 6:32 am

Winston..........

There is a few little known facts about formating and putting a new OS system on hard drives.

1) Don't ever just re-format a hard drive !!
2) Run FDISK on it......
1a) Remove the partitions FIRST
2a) Remove all logical drives
3a) Then,start with option 1 of FDISK and go from there
3) AFTER the FDISK operation is completed, and BEFORE you re-format the drive,(This next step is VERY important !!)
4) At the x> prompt: (where x = drive that the FDISK program is on, usually A :> run this Command:

FDISK /MBR

This process will NOT attempt to do the above process again. What it will do is:

MBR is short for MASTER BOOT RECORD. Most-often the O/S will write a string or two in this sector.(For whatever reason,we don't care)

MBR will write 0's (zeros) in the master boot sector,thus clearing it of all other commands,etc,etc. Now, we have a truely clean and fresh drive. At this point,we can run the "format c:/sys" command.

Viola !! we now have a new fresh egg to play with.

You said it took 12 hours to perform a reload of XP. Thats way too long to install any O/S. If your having any problems loading a O/S, it's best to assumne there is a big problem and the drive really needs to be cleaned by useing FDISK.

I have spent many hours finding out about this and now I don't even attempt to just reformat and reload a O/S onto a machine that has a terminal problem.

(hint).....
Some spyware and bots write to the MBR and the registery. That way they can grab your computer you cain't get rid of the offending pop-up or taskbar crap.

This part is VERY IMPORTANT !!
DO NOT attempt to run THIS dos command under a WINDOWS panel. You must actually boot the machine up under dos !!!!

You can run FDISK /MBR from the dos command line at any time without worry of dishing the drive.

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http://home.comcast.net/~crookwf/

http://f1.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/crookwf/my_photos [This message was edited by Bill Crook on 19 July 2004 at 01:46 PM.]

winston · Post by **winston** » 18 Jul 2004 6:43 am

Bill, thanks for all the info. I did not know about the FDISK /MBR command. Is there a space between the fdisk and the /? I always do this everytime when reloading a computer: fdisk> delete partition> create new partition> reboot> then format C: I did not know about the FDISK /MBR. I will always remember this. thanks again. winston may

Earnest Bovine · Post by **Earnest Bovine** » 18 Jul 2004 7:53 am

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>DO NOT attempt to run THIS dos command under a WINDOWS panel. You must actually boot the machine up under dos !!!!
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>Is this possible with new machines (new Windows versions) ?

winston · Post by **winston** » 18 Jul 2004 10:35 am

Ernest, no it is not possible. xp does not have a true dos.

Bill Crook · Post by **Bill Crook** » 20 Jul 2004 12:00 pm

Yes..... There is a space between the FDISK and the forward slash symbol.

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http://home.comcast.net/~crookwf/

http://f1.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/crookwf/my_photos [This message was edited by Bill Crook on 21 July 2004 at 06:38 AM.]