Ronnie,
Sorry I missed your reply post as I've been out of touch
for a couple days.
Since you are having trouble doing a repair install, you
can try to install Windows over the current
installation. Doing so will not make you lose any of
your music files or other documents. You will have to re-
install most, if not all of your software though. You
will also lose track of your My Documents folder. It
will still be there but you have to hunt it down. It
will be at c:\documents and settings\yourusername\my
documents. Once you find it, move or copy your files
from that location to your new My Documents folder. If
you are using Outlook or Outlook Express for email, you
can import your email, contacts, etc.. Post another
reply if that is the case and I will give you
instructions for that too.
If the above still doesn't work and you want to just wipe
the drive clean and start over you can do the following
to save your files. It sounds from what I've read that
you are still able to boot the computer, but I couldn't
tell for sure. What I would do at this point if you are
able to boot is to try and locate another hard drive.
Maybe you can borrow one or pull one from an old
computer. You need to know how to configure your
computer for two hard drives. In other words, your
existing or boot drive would be your master and the one
you add would be the slave. You will likely have an IDE
cable plugged into your drive that has an available
connection for a second drive to connect to. You should
also have an available power cable to connect to the
drive as well but if you don't, you can temporarily
borrow one from the CD drive and replace it when you are
done. There are multiple scenarios in configuring your
drives to work. As I recall, your DELL drive jumper is
set to CS or Cable Select. If that is the case, you need
to make sure that the jumper on the drive you add is also
set to CS. The other option is to set the jumper on your
DELL drive to master and your additional drive as the
slave. Setting or keeping it at CS is the easiest method
though. If you have questions or it is unclear what
jumpers to choose to make these settings, you will find
jumper information at the drive manufacturer's website.
You may also have to go into the BIOS setup and enable
drive two. It likely will be disabled. To enter the
BIOS setup, hit F2 when you see the DELL logo at bootup
or just start tapping F2 right after you turn your
computer on. Look just below your existing drive in the
setup screen and enable that drive if it is not already.
After you get everything setup, boot your computer and
copy your files over to the slave drive. Then put
everything back the way it was or at least pull the IDE
cable from the slave drive and place the power cable back
on the CD drive if you borrowed it from there. Then boot
to your DELL Windows Recovery CD. If the system won't
boot to your CD you should go back into the BIOS and look
at the boot order. Move the CD drive up in priority
above the hard drive. Once the Windows setup program
loads, hit Enter to install Windows. On one of the
following screens it will ask you if you want to install
Windows on the current partition or give you a chance to
delete the current partition. Delete the current
partition and then let it re-create the partition to
maximum size. Continue the process to install Windows.
After you are done, you will need to install drivers and
you should have 1 or more DELL drivers cd. They may have
a setup program for the drivers to automate the process
or you may have to go to Device Manager and manually
install them.(Right click on My Computer on your start
menu, select Properties, Hardware, Device Manager)
Double click on any items that are marked and hit Upate
Driver or Re-install Driver then on the following menu,
point to your CD drive.
After you are done with installing the drivers and any
software you need to, repeat the steps above and put the
slave drive back in to copy your files over.
Be sure and install all of your Windows Critical
Updates. You will find a link on your Programs Menu for
Windows Update or you can go to
www.windowsupdate.com
Hopefully the first option will work for you as it is
much easier and quicker. If you run into major trouble,
you can contact me through austinpctech.com.
Good Luck
