It gets as far as the Dell startup screen. I just re-installed XP on this machine and am simply thinking the hard drive cable came loose. (it did it once to me before from the drive from her house to my house) any other ideas?

Rick

Can you get into the bios and see if it is seeing the correct hard drive? Also do you have a boot disk like PE?

It doesn't even show anything now I think it's a shotty VGA Card. I'm going to replace it today and see where I stand. The problem was the HDD cable was loose I fixed that but the VGA card I think went out of it or I fried the MOBO.

Rick

If it was the video card you may not even get to see the boot up text. I'm surprised you don't get any error message at all.

Well at first I only saw the bootup screen (this was because the HDD cable was unplugged) I fixed that and then it worked fine. Now I can't see anything so I think the VGA card just went out on it or I fried the MOBO when messing with HDD.

Rick

Does it have that particular *smell*? :(

Well at first I only saw the bootup screen (this was because the HDD cable was unplugged) I fixed that and then it worked fine. Now I can't see anything so I think the VGA card just went out on it or I fried the MOBO when messing with HDD.

Rick

If your going to be messing around with computers like this you should think about getting a PE disk. Since it's a stand alone OS you can check a system fully so long as it boots. Also good for recovery and virus removal.

That sounds good BUT it didn't boot that's why a PE disc would have been superfluous anyway but for future experiments it sounds like a good idea!

I have a general idea of what a PE disc does but can someone re-explain!

Thanks

Rick

No smell either!

That sounds good BUT it didn't boot thats why a PE disc would have been superfluous anyways but for future experiments it sounds like a good idea!

I have a general idea of what a PE disc does but can someone re-explain!

Thanks

Rick

What it is for is to prepare your computer for installation. But its also a stand alone OS that can have other apps to run with it so you can have access to everything on the host machine without booting it at all. If it is infected this would bypass it. When used with disk tools you can check and repair a drive outside of the host OS. It's a pretty cool tool. Also it can be booted from USB.

Ref:


What is Windows PE? (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc766093(WS.10).aspx)

Thank You! Very helpful!

Rick

OK this thread got off topic so Im starting a new one!