reformating/reinstalling windows

eurotrotter

hey gang
i have a (dektop) dell dimensions 4600, and i lost the windows installation disc.

I reformatted the HD, and installed xo home edition off a copy of xp i used on my laptop.

I have encountered all sorts of errors, one .e.g. 'cant locate hal.dll'


Can a xp only be reinstalled using the original discs, I know for a fact that everything I am doing during the re installation/reformatting procedure is correct,

so i am thinking that this issue has something to do with the discs that I am using.


any insight ito this would be great


thanks very much ppl,

Ed

docmol

hal.dll is part of the boot process, but could indicate a dodgy harddrive too. check this out for more info http://pcsupport.about.com/od/findbyerrormessage/a/missinghaldll.htm
did you use the same copy of xp (ie home/pro) on the deskyop as it originally had? More to the point, did you download and install all the drivers needed for the desktop? Lastly, when you formated the harddrive did you partition it first, and most inportantly, run a full chkdsk on it after?

eurotrotter

did you use the same copy of xp (ie home/pro) on the deskyop as it originally had?

no, its a copy that i bought off the net, and have successfully used on my laptop alread

More to the point, did you download and install all the drivers needed for the desktop?

ya i have the drivers disc, and have installed all the drivers.

Lastly, when you formated the harddrive did you partition it first, and most inportantly, run a full chkdsk on it after?


whats a chkdsk?


thanks very much for the help, much appreciated.

ed

docmol

chkdsk is a program which checks the disc for errors. you can run it from within windows but i always run it after a format. if the original problem on you machine was caused by errors on your harddrive a reinstall won't solve the problem. chkdsk should find any problem areas on your disk (called bad sectors) and stop windows from trying to use them. if you can get the machine to boot try opening "my computer" right-clicking on the "c:" drive and picking properties. this will bring up the hdd properties window and there should be a "tools" tab or window (sorry, it's been ages since i used xp!) there should be an option to "check drive for errors" with a further option to do a full or physical scan. this is what you are looking for. you may need to restart your pc for the scan to take place. depending on the size of the disc it can take a while (a couple of hours) but it should at least tell you if there is a physical problem with the disc. hope that helps.

eurotrotter

just ran it there, thanks a million for that, worked a dream.


there is just one other thing, when i start the computer up, it has this black background, with a white progress bar down the bottom of the screen, just like what is seen when a computer starts up after being in hibernation mode, any idea what this might be?


thanks very much

ed

docmol

not sure what you mean, maybe boot the machine and shut it down then reboot, just to make sure you aren't letting it hibernate ot something. glad your hal issue is sorted : )

eurotrotter

thanks for the help guys


i have installed again, and it looks to me like dell computers only allow you to reinstall the OS with the original discs, i have tried with two different reinstallation discs, that are NOT specific to any computer, i.e. purchased on their own, and I am still getting similiar issues.

madness

Fysh

eurotrotter wrote: »

thanks for the help guys


i have installed again, and it looks to me like dell computers only allow you to reinstall the OS with the original discs, i have tried with two different reinstallation discs, that are NOT specific to any computer, i.e. purchased on their own, and I am still getting similiar issues.

madness

There are three versions of XP: Home, Professional and Corporate.
There are also three distributions of them: Retail, OEM and Volume Licence.

Each distribution will work only with its own key - a retail key won't work with a volume licence key, for example. OEM versions may include modifiers to prevent them being used on non-vendor hardware (Eg a disc supplied by Dell might not work on HP hardware). An OEM key won't work with a retail key, either.

So:

If you've done a full reinstall and are still having problems, I would suspect that you've actually got an OEM copy of windows that doesn't match your hardware.

There is nothing about Dell computers that restricts you to using only Dell-supplied media; however, if the media you're using is HP-supplied (for example) that may cause problems and I would guess that this is the source of your problem.