Reformatted a hd, Put it back in old pc, wont boot at all

[Hobie-wan]

And @ Hobie.. I don't remember seeing any errors. Although back when my friend first tried to help me get XP on it, when we had the SP2 install fails, we did take the floppy drive out because it was trying to read it I think. That drive is long gone lol .. But it's been unchecked in the boot sequence.

Unchecked in the boot sequence isn't the same as the BIOS being told there should be one there and that setting possibly being told to halt on errors. Even if it was in the boot device list before, it wouldn't have mattered as long as there was a HD or CD it was going to end up successfully booting from. It would have just been a pause while it checked the gloppy if it was first in the list. Likewise if you moved the CD drive to a different plug on the cables inside the machine, those and the jumper settings as mentioned before for the HD (they matter for the CD too) are important.

You need to check these things and provide definite answers, otherwise you're not going to get anywhere except by dumb luck.

[optmusprimenumber]

@ziggy ..right right. I'm gonna give my buddy a call tomorrow. See if he figured anything out, and let him know about that approach. Right on.

@hobie ..i was kind of afraid that i wasn't giving enough information and that my understanding of this computer jazz is a little weak. I'll bring that up with my friend too. Probably just link him to this thread.

Much appreciated. I'll report back with our findings.

[Anapan]

Try the low level harddrive tools on "ultimate boot cd"
There's huge guides on what they all do on google.

[optmusprimenumber]

Well fellas, all the suggestions were much appreciated.. though all for naught lol my friend plugged the hdd it into his linux machine externally and determined it is shot. I must have done that with the nuking/quitting/reformatting

He had an old, and larger hdd sitting around that he stuck in there for me. I spoke to him a few minutes ago. The XP install is moving right along.

Thanks again!

[Ziggy]

Might not have been anything you did. The HDD might have just been ready to go, and the formatting was what pushed it over the edge.

Awesome that you got it working in the end though.

[optmusprimenumber]

Might not have been anything you did. The HDD might have just been ready to go, and the formatting was what pushed it over the edge.

Awesome that you got it working in the end though.

Thats what my buddy said. Oh well.

And absolutely. Now I have to find drivers though.. I can't complain my friend didn't take care of that. But it wont go online. My searching and results were questionable. I have another pc savvy friend down the street who helped me with this computer the first time. He knows where to look.

SOON!

Sidenote.. This box likes to fire up when power is connected.. A quick search suggested a few problems. I checked the settings, they're correct. I can't seem to locate the power supply, I was under the impression that it's a metal box looking deal. I found the wires that were talked about in a video explaining the "paperclip test" ...though I didn't try the test just yet. But I guess I'll have to keep reading and trying stuff.

[Ziggy]

Well it's a Dell, right? The power supply wont have an on/off switch, just the tower's power switch.

Are you having trouble finding drivers because it originally had Vista on it and now you downgraded to XP? Nothing on the Dell website? Worse case scenario, you could just pick up a PCI LAN card that has drivers for XP and use that.

[Hobie-wan]

I'm pretty sure I have a spare old network card that I'm willing to send for just postage.

[Ziggy]

I'm pretty sure I have a spare old network card that I'm willing to send for just postage.

Which brings to mind... Back when I had my first XP tower, the mobo had USB 1.1 ports. I eventually got a USB 2.0 card from a friend, but it took me FOREVER to find the drivers for it because it wasn't a well known brand. I could imagine the same thing happening with the network card.

[Hobie-wan]

Which brings to mind... Back when I had my first XP tower, the mobo had USB 1.1 ports. I eventually got a USB 2.0 card from a friend, but it took me FOREVER to find the drivers for it because it wasn't a well known brand. I could imagine the same thing happening with the network card.

Not likely. I might have 2 lying around. One is a SMC 1211TX, which is pretty common and I think XP SP1 or SP2 had built in ones. The other might be a 3 Com. So both are common brands. Heck, I might still have a floppy with the SMC drivers on it.