Dell 8400 xp install

No SCSI. Partion Magic recognized the HD and I re-partioned it. Any ideas? Join our community to see this answer! Unlock 1 Answer and 12 Comments. Andrew Hancock - VMware vExpert.

See if this solution works for you by signing up for a 7 day free trial. Got a windows screen then all went black for what seemed like an age. Hats off to both of you for the sound advice! The power of the internet never ceases to amaze, and the generosity and helpfulness of its netizens is humbling. I hope this thread provides help to others looking for this solution, although there can't be that many people rebuilding their ageing s anymore surely!

Oh and the speed does seem to be improved. I'm using photoshop lightroom and it's much snappier with all the disk access it needs to do! Stephen, it has been a pleasure. When helping fellow computer owners we share in the adventure and often learn quite a bit as well. We wish you the best of luck. Forgot one thing; I noticed you didn't mention it, so I thought I should remind you to install the Intel Matrix Storage Manager update that Ron was pointing out in an earlier post.

This update is a remedy for a possible STOP error that doesn't happen to everyone, but now and again pops up unexpectedly. Again, wishing you the best of luck. I'm master student. I got an old computer from my supervisor, Dell Dimension It was running well 5 weeks ago. But I came after my vacation, it shows error messages, and now it cant boot. Since it is an old computer, I or my supervisor don't have drivers. Joined Mar 24, Messages Can you boot up into the Windows XP recovery console?

Joined Aug 7, Messages 9, Might help if you would post the actual error message. I can get to the point where I select which windows installation to log into. When I type 1 and then press enter the blue screen is displayed. When it won't even get to the point of prompting for the Admin password, the registry is in really bad shape. It could also be a failing hard drive, or RAM. If you have 2 sticks of RAM, and the system will run with just one, try that. If both are required, you could swap them to see if it makes a difference.

Have you run the Dell diagnostics? Does it get as far as the choice to repair or install a fresh copy, or fail before then? If you have your data backed up, you may want to choose to do a fresh install rather than a repair, then delete the partition, and let Windows Setup create a new partition and format it.

A parallel install is another option. After repairing the original install, removing the 2nd is just a matter of booting into the original, then editing the boot. However, as a parallel install shares the Program Files folder, and several folders under Documents and Settings, it's possible that some applications may need to be re-installed. And definitely do not create a user with the same name as one that already exists, just stick with the default Administrator account and don't create any users.

He hates it, won't use the functionality - he's an email, documents, webbrowser user only. So i am downgrading from Vista to XP. Wish me luck! Reminders of good old days. I have a floppy and am still getting a "no hard drives found" after installing the sata drivers from it. I can't figure this out and it is killing me. The cmos recognizes the drives on boot. Windows XP even tells me that the drivers it has are newer than those I have and I even tried loading those but still have the same problem.

Mark, If you are installing additional brand-new HDs, then bare in mind that you must create partition s and those partitions must be formatted in order to be used.

Use disk management right-click on my computer then click on "manage" and select disk management. When I got it back and tried to boot with it it went into a "reboot loop" I am assuming because of chipset differences between my machine and his. I tried again to reinstall with my computer and got the same thing When I plug it in and use it as a secondary drive I guess I will have to get another motherboard.

You can disable it in BIOS giving we are not talking about primary disk with OS and it will still be recognized as if it was enabled. Silicon images f6 drivers. Not NF4 drivers. Differences with chipsets might be bypassed by OS. Do not format the disk. It might not be possible with the SATA drives vs. XP conflict. I just had the same problem. It might be a different option for you as I don't have a dell.