reinstall questions

[Kathy]

I am giving an old computer to my MIL. I want to wipe it by reinstalling XP.
I have a Dell reinstall disk which I *think* goes with this computer.

Two questions:

If I reinstall and put MIL's name in for registration instead of mine, will
that cause a problem?

Is there a way to determine if that reinstall disk does pertain to this
computer? We've since moved on to laptops, so whatever disk it is, it isn't
in use on any other computer any more.

Thanks!

Kathy

 

[David B.]

It makes no difference who's name is entered. It also makes no difference
which Dell recovery CD you use, as long as the version matches the version
on the COA on the PC (Home, Pro, Media Center, etc).

 

[Kathy]

Thank you so much!

The reinstall went fine and all seemed to be working well. Then this morning
when I booted up the machine it got stuck in a loop between the blue screen
of doom, the black-and-white Safe Mode/Normal boot page, and a Windows
screen. I finally disconnected the ethernet cable and it booted fine. I was
then able to attach the cable again and connect to the internet.

A similar problem booting had been going on with this computer for some
time, which is one of the reasons I wanted to do the reinstall. Since we want
to give this to my MIL, we don't want her to have to jump through too many
scary hoops.

I followed the error message and learned that it might need a BIOS update. I
downloaded the file and tried to install it, but it turns out I need a
diskette, which I can't find.

The computer is actually booting okay now. But in the meantime we thought we
might need to use a different one. So now I have a new question.

The other old computer available ran Windows 2000. That will not work for
MIL's purposes (new high-speed internet connection). I think it's also a Dell
(it's not here but at MIL's house at the moment). Could I use the same
reinstall XP disk to put the program on that computer? I'm hoping to avoid
the booting problems we seem to be having.

If we can't do that, could we just buy a new hard disk for this one? And, if
so, would it come with an operating system already on it, or could we use the
backup disk for it?

I'd love to get any suggestions or hear any options you may think of.

Kathy

 

[David B.]

It is a violation of the licensing agreement to install XP using a Dell cd
on a computer that 1, is not a Dell, and 2, did not ship with that version
of XP, having said that, if the other PC is a Dell there's a good chance it
will work just fine.

 

[Kathy]

Thanks again. I hope it won't come to that. But we're definitely not trying
to use the same software on more than one machine, at least, and we did
acquire the software legally. Hopefully that will count for something!

Do you have any idea why the computer might not boot properly with the
ethernet cable attached?

Kathy

 

[Kathy]

Here's an update. This morning the reformatted computer would not boot even
without the ethernet cable. It gets stuck in a loop:

First the Dell logo comes up.
Then the blue-and-white error screen flashes on, but too quickly to read.
Then the Windows logo comes up.
Then the black-and-white Safe Mode screen comes up.

No matter what we choose, or if we let it time itself out, it keeps cycling
through those four screens.

Any ideas?

Kathy

 

[David B.]

At the boot menu screen is there an option to disable automatic restart? If
so select it, then post back with the BSOD info, we can't do much without
that. If you don't have the disable auto restart option can you boot using
the safe mode option?

 

[Kathy]

I cannot boot into Safe Mode. Every choice on that screen ends up in the same
loop.

I couldn't see any choices on the boot screen for disabling automatic
retries either.

I did catch a glimpse of the first error message, 0x0000007E. That is the
same one we got a couple of days ago. I couldn't read the rest today, but the
other time they were 0x00000005, 0x806BC110, 0xI9E495E8, and 0xF9e492E8.

Kathy

 

[David B.]

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/330182

 

[Kathy]

Actually, that loops us back up to message #3 above. Updating the BIOS was
the first thing I tried, but that's a diskette I can't seem to find. And I
never did get a driver error message.

I think I'm dead in the water here. Thanks for all your help.

Kathy