Inspiron 6000 XP/sp3 not booting

smos585

This is got me puzzled. When the laptop boots, after the boot screen all we get is a flashing curser.

When we enter BIOS everything looks good, the pata hdd etc are showing as they should.

It will however boot from the XP CD and from a USB drive. We have checked (on another system) the samsung hdd with the samsung hdd utility hutil, and comes clean; chkdsk c:/r is also clean.


When we run the XP repair console we can see the file structure which looks fine. Bootcfg shows that the boot info is okay, we have run fixboot just in case, but makes no difference. We have also checked that the following are present,

• Boot.ini
• NTLDR
• Ntdetect.com

Since the dvd and hdd are both on the eide controllers, I can't understand why it won't boot? Any suggestions?

PS The Hdd was replaced about a year ago because if bad sectors.

debitcardmayhem

I assume you have no USB devices connected at all ? Having read your post it seems unlikely but who knows for sure, I once saw a problem where the BIOS was set to boot from Network Then CD then HDD and the network card was duff , but that is a very long shot... I cannot remember a CMOS battery being flat causing that either but it may be worth check the date & time in BIOS.

smos585

Great. Yes I changed the boot sequence so that cd/dvd is first, usb second. and hdd third. I changed it also to swap the last two around, and then disabled usb. Nic booting disabled. No joy.

I checked the cmos, I believe I am correct if the date/time is good, it is unlikley to be the cmos?

Lastly I have also tried all permutations of the two RAM modules.

Thanks.

debitcardmayhem

Have you tried the dell diags I think it is here http://support.dell.com/support/topics/global.aspx/support/kcs/document?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs&docid=DSN_A9E3A15597A04AFBB02EE16785D39C5C&isLegacy=true

smos585

Great minds! was just rubbibg dell diags - unfortunately all items passed. I wonder if there is a BIOS issue, can only upgrade bios if I had a usb floppy?

debitcardmayhem

does it start in safe mode ? forgot to ask that....press F8 as soon as you see the Dell splash

debitcardmayhem

OH and when in the XP repair try sfc /scannow

smos585

Thank you.

unfortunately, it won't boot, F8 is not operational. as soon as the BIOS flash screen disappears I get the curser instantly. Usually when the bootloader cuts in there is a pause, but not in this case.

It may be relevant but when I boot to the xp cd, I first get the curser, but after 4-5 seconds get he option to boot from the CD.

smos585

I have also tried now, restoring the registry, and doing a repair install. Nothing doing.

Guess it must be hardware - anyone care to guess where the problem might be, bearing in mind can boot to repair console, samsung hdd hutil shows no errors, fixboot done! So what could it be?

GunJack

take hdd out and boot from a bootcd like hiren's (miniXP mode) or puppy linux....i recon your hdd is burgered...if it does boot like this without the hdd in place, there's yer answer. A borked hdd will also stop it booting from cd/usb whilst it's still in the machine

smos585

GunJack wrote: »

take hdd out and boot from a bootcd like hiren's (miniXP mode) or puppy linux....i recon your hdd is burgered...if it does boot like this without the hdd in place, there's yer answer. A borked hdd will also stop it booting from cd/usb whilst it's still in the machine

thank you.

But it passes the Samsung diagnostics tests, plus no problem with drive loaded into another system. Plus it boots from CDs and USB drives (with hdd present), and can access the hdd from these boots.

I agree its odd, it is under warranty (the drive), its hard to say its faulty when its doesn't fail the manufacturer's tests?

I'm stumped!