Reformat problems

Rev

I'm assuming I'd need to have the current warranty details. Worth a try though, especially since all I have a nice big paperweight right now.

Thanks for the help, the suggestions were appreciated.

fwor

Sorry Rev - we helped you break it good & proper!

But it was probably on its way out anyway... Good luck in your efforts with Dell!

Rev

I'm hoping it wasn't on it's way out, it's less than 4 months old.

I think this is more human error than machine lol, besides the keyboard problem it was working fine until I took the battery out. So I've no one to blame but myself.

Just hope dell can help, or I'll have to take it god knows where to have it fixed, thus losing the money I saved buying second hand. Ah well, something learned for next time around.

Thanks.

albertross_2

just call them, and tell them the serial no, ask for advice on how to get into bios when cmos defaults have been reset with a usb keyboard.

Sorry about the battery suggestion, but we had tried everything else. it is a strange one, cmos batteries don't last forever, so the defaults should enable you to get into bios.

It could be a bios bug, so a bios update might cure it, but you would need some means of booting (floppy etc) to get there

Rev

Don't apologise, I'm grateful for the help. It might have worked amd you had no reason to think it shouldn't.

The warranty transfer has been completed this morning but it can take up to 30 days for all the paper work and stuff apparently. So I just hope they take pity.

Got an old floppy disk so I'm gonna put that in later, hopefully that'll get me past the boot errors and back to vista, then it's just the keyboard problem.

I looked around last night and apparently it's a bit of an issue with the 5150, it is a bios fault but even the latest bios doesn't fix it.

again, thanks for the help.

albertross_2

I'm hoping it auto detects your primary hard disk...

You should be able to call Dell for help regardless of the warranty situation, worth a try.

Rev

I gave dell a call and apparently they were aware of the warranty being transferred so they were perfectly happy to help.

He asked me to try resetting the cmos again, did that, still not detecting it, there's not actually a port to put a floppy drive in so couldn't get around it that way.

He thinks it's a motherboard fault so they're sending an engineer out Friday to replace it.

The pessimist in me is dubious though lol, I'll be happy once they've been and it's up and running.

Once again, thanks for the help.

Rev

Just to update, dell engineer came out today, turns out it was a bios problem, replaced the motherboard and all was well.

Again, thanks for the help.