Has my Dell 1300 laptop burned a copy WINXP or not?

thor

I got my Dell 1300 laptop a few weeks ago and have finally got round to using it's dvd rewriter. I was going to check it earlier but had been tied up trying to sort out getting it connected to my wifi network. Anyway now that has been fixed and I have turned my attention to this rewriter. I am aware that there has been a lot of problems reported about it particularly when trying to burn Dell's version of Windows XP. So I used Dell's accessory program to burn myself a copy and after a while found that it had failed at about 80ish percent and was requesting that I put in a new cd. I did not bother as I feared that it would do the same again but when I put the burned cd into my desktop it seemed like the WinXP had been created and I was being asked if I want to run the installation. Of course I was not going to do this on my desktop but when I checked how much data was on the CD, it came up as 583MB. Now has anyone got a working copy of Dell's WinXP for laptops and if so can they tell me how much data I should expect to see. Is it 583MB or has the burn been a partial one and it failed before it got everything on the cd?
I have also tried burning data on a rewriteable DVD but that failed during the formatting using the roxio software that came with the laptop. I don't want to waste too many disks testing this drive as I will be using my desktop to do all my burning but it would be nice to know that the laptop drive is performing flawlessly so any suggestions would be welcome.

sco0ter

If the burn process did not complete then I would not trust the disc.Windows XP will install until it reaches a file it needs. It does not check the disk before install so therefore it doesnt know its corrupt until it tries the install. This would be too late to reverse if the disk is not complete.

WestieFan

Phone up Dell and ask you to send a copy of the disk out to you. On my Inspiron 1300 there isn't an option to burn this disk, they said it had been taken away from the newer laptops.

I just called them and told them I would like to have a copy, just in case.
The sent it out promptly, along with the various other CDs for drivers etc and even phoned to see if it had arrived.

thor

sco0ter wrote:

If the burn process did not complete then I would not trust the disc.Windows XP will install until it reaches a file it needs. It does not check the disk before install so therefore it doesnt know its corrupt until it tries the install. This would be too late to reverse if the disk is not complete.

This is what worried me into posting here.

thor

WestieFan wrote:

Phone up Dell and ask you to send a copy of the disk out to you. On my Inspiron 1300 there isn't an option to burn this disk, they said it had been taken away from the newer laptops.

I just called them and told them I would like to have a copy, just in case.
The sent it out promptly, along with the various other CDs for drivers etc and even phoned to see if it had arrived.

So how much data do you have on that WinXP cd?

WestieFan

Not sure I know what you mean, thor.

They sent me a Windows XP SP2 disk, complete with serial number and documentation.

Should I be worried about something?

peter_the_piper

WestieFan wrote:

Phone up Dell and ask you to send a copy of the disk out to you. On my Inspiron 1300 there isn't an option to burn this disk, they said it had been taken away from the newer laptops.

I just called them and told them I would like to have a copy, just in case.
The sent it out promptly, along with the various other CDs for drivers etc and even phoned to see if it had arrived.

Not sure if this is correct, I bought an Inspiron 1300 in the recent deal, and had the 512 memory selection, and was able to burn the recovery disk without problems. It seems to be more related to memory size than anything else.

WestieFan

Sounds like I got the same one, £348 with 512mb memory?

I was looking on Dell's site and found a link to another site for Dell users to get help. That's where I saw the post re the Inspirons not having the option.

It should be on Start/All Programs/Dell Accessories but all I have in there is Driver Reset Tools. The person I spoke to at Dell said the option to burn the cd was taken off months ago, as the hard drive was now partitioned or something (not too technically minded!).

:easter:

thor

WestieFan wrote:

Not sure I know what you mean, thor.

They sent me a Windows XP SP2 disk, complete with serial number and documentation.

Should I be worried about something?

No, I'm not trying to scare you Westie. What I was trying to do was to see if the disk I burned had all the files needed for the installation. So if your disk had 583MB worth of data then it is likely that my disk which also has 583MB would be ok even though the laptop reported a burning error.
As it happened I went ahead and had a 2nd attempt and this time there were no problems with the cd being reported as having been burned correctly. And guess what? This cd had 583MB of data so that means the first disk has in fact also burned correctly which means that I have 2 back up cds of WinXP. I've not had any reason to use them yet but if I did would I need to get hold of a serial key. I can't see any documentation that contains such a number.

WestieFan

I'm no expert but would guess that you wouldn't need a serial number since what you have done is just take a copy of the one which is already installed. Maybe somebody will correct me on this if I'm wrong.

What I can't understand is that these appear to be the same laptops yet some have this facility and others don't. What's going on there?

wonderfullife_2

Hi
Don't know if this helps at all, but when I received my Dell I could only burn the recovery disc once, after that the option disappeared. It wasn't xp though, it was a recovery disc.

Have you checked the cd that you've burnt to see whats on it.

Hope this helps