Repair Install Win XP

[Guest]

I have a Dell 8400 with Win XP MCE 2005, 1gig mem. 320 gig SATA Raid 0 Hard
Drive, CDRW and DVDRW.

My computer won't recongnize either the CD or DVD drives. I have
uninstalled and re-installed both drives several times and attempted to
update and roll-back the drivers. I have tried several various restore points
back as far as last month (none of them will complete the restore, msg just
says unable to complete restore and gives option to choose another restore
point).

I have downloaded the set of "floppy disks" to start a reinstall, but before
I do that I wanted to ask if anyone knows if the "floppy's" have the drive
support for the CD, DVD drives as I will have to complete the install with
the Installation CD.

Oh yeah, I already tried to boot with the CD, the machine doesn't see the
drive even at that point. I also already ran diagnostics on the drives and
the CD may be bad, but the DVD checks out ok. Any help or information would
be appreciated.
Thanks in advance, larryo

 

[Bert Kinney]

Hi Larry,

I will address the System Restore issue.

Are there any Norton applications installed? If so take a look at the next link.

"Restoration Incomplete. Your computer cannot be restored . . . "
http://bertk.mvps.org/html/symantecdoc1.html

And here are some troubleshooting steps to take when System Restore fails to
restore:
http://bertk.mvps.org/html/srfail.html

Regards,
Bert Kinney MS-MVP Shell/User
http://bertk.mvps.org
Member: http://dts-l.org

 

[Patrick Keenan]

I have a Dell 8400 with Win XP MCE 2005, 1gig mem. 320 gig SATA Raid 0
Hard
Drive, CDRW and DVDRW.

My computer won't recongnize either the CD or DVD drives. I have
uninstalled and re-installed both drives several times and attempted to
update and roll-back the drivers. I have tried several various restore
points
back as far as last month (none of them will complete the restore, msg
just
says unable to complete restore and gives option to choose another restore
point).

I have downloaded the set of "floppy disks" to start a reinstall, but
before
I do that I wanted to ask if anyone knows if the "floppy's" have the drive
support for the CD, DVD drives as I will have to complete the install with
the Installation CD.

Oh yeah, I already tried to boot with the CD, the machine doesn't see the
drive even at that point.

In that case, floppies probably won't help you. You need to deal with the
hardware problems first.

I also already ran diagnostics on the drives and
the CD may be bad,

Remove it and set the DVD as primary on its channel.

but the DVD checks out ok. Any help or information would
be appreciated.
Thanks in advance, larryo

The floppies do contain CD drivers, but that won't help you at all if the
BIOS doesn't recognise the CD/DVD drive. Go into the BIOS, and check that
these drives are detected, and that they are first in the boot sequence.
Then restart with any known-bootable disk in the drive.

To force booting from CD, disconnect the hard disk. If you think the CD
drive is marginal, remove it and be sure that the other drive is detected
properly (and that jumpers are set properly) and that it's set as the boot
disk. You can speed up troubleshooting a little bit by disconnecting the
hard disk power and data cables.

If the system doesn't boot from the CD, replace the drives and cables.

HTH
-pk