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Laptop Mysteries

Discussion in 'Windows XP' started by rollinondubs, 2004/07/25.

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  1. 2004/07/26
    PeteC

    PeteC SuperGeek Staff

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    Kent

    31MB is a hell of a lot of disk space for diagnostics - roughly half the drive??
    My HP has at most a 3 - 4 Mb hidden partition for this.
     
    PeteC,
    #21
  2. 2004/07/26
    dobhar Lifetime Subscription

    dobhar Inactive

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    Our HP's also only have a 4MB Diaganostic partition.

    Actually according to his post his partition1 is 31 MB with 24 MB free and his partition2 is 38,115 MB with 32,592 MB free...so he basically has 32 GB free disk space. Whatever he's got loaded is taking up approx 6 GB of space.

    From what I have been reading...Googling...most of the pages mention that
    Still looking...
     
    dobhar,
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  4. 2004/07/26
    PeteC

    PeteC SuperGeek Staff

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    If only life was that simple :) failed miserably so far - I think!
     
    PeteC,
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  5. 2004/07/26
    rollinondubs

    rollinondubs Inactive Thread Starter

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    I actually have loaded the drivers and such from the discs

    Reinstalling Inspiron System Software/Device drivers and diagnostic utilities
    Reinstalling Dell Tools System Software/Antivirus, Support, Multimedia, Internet Software
     
    rollinondubs,
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  6. 2004/07/26
    dobhar Lifetime Subscription

    dobhar Inactive

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    Pete...

    By the way, luv your pics on your site...very, very, very nice. :D

    Anyways...just took a look at one of the Dell's I'm setting up for a user and here is a pic of the partitions.
     
    dobhar,
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  7. 2004/07/26
    dobhar Lifetime Subscription

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    rollinondubs...

    Do yo have any other CD's other than the ones you listed? Wondering if one of them is a restore CD...if so we could restore or original config.

    I also found these that might help...

    - http://support.dell.com/support/top...install/en/index?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs&~ck=mn - Home page for Software reinstall guide for the Dell Inspiron 1150
    - http://support.dell.com/support/top...ent?c=us&cs=19&DN=1089760&type=SRG&l=en&s=dhs
    - http://support.dell.com/support/topics/global.aspx/support/kb/en/document?dn=1088390

    I'm still at work and it's 05:11 PM Cental here so I'm going home. I will check in later.
     
    dobhar,
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  8. 2004/07/26
    PeteC

    PeteC SuperGeek Staff

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    Kent

    That looks familiar from what rollinondubs posted

    Glad you liked my pictures!

    rollinondubs

    The problems you describe re.
    all point to the lack of drivers.

    Go to Device Manager and see if there are any items are flagged with a yellow '!' and see if the modem is present. You can check out the modem from there or via Control Panel to see if it is working.

    I'm afraid it's been a long day and I'm more than ready for my bed! I'll check back in the morning, about midnight your time. In the meantime I hope there may be some further posts ofhelp.
     
    PeteC,
    #27
  9. 2004/07/26
    rollinondubs

    rollinondubs Inactive Thread Starter

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    I got big yellow question marks on the following entries:

    -Other Devices
    Base System Device
    Base System Device
    Ethernet Controller
    Multimedia Audio Controller
    PCI Modem
    Video Controller
    Video Controller (VGA Compatible)


    I take it I need drivers? I'll check what discs I have and post back shortly. I have Windows XP Home Edition on my desktop, and may have more backup discs available in for that edition.

    Thanks again.
     
    rollinondubs,
    #28
  10. 2004/07/26
    Newt

    Newt Inactive

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    Errrr PeteC - that's 31Mb so just a tiny fraction of the physical driv

    Edit by PeteC - reading but not seeing - so busy & too tired last night - should have been in bed!    .
     
    Newt,
    #29
  11. 2004/07/26
    rollinondubs

    rollinondubs Inactive Thread Starter

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    The discs that I have I've previously described and both have been installed and I'm still having the same problems. I'm not even convinced this is the proper disc for setup on this thing. I'm tempted to just contact Dell as I recently purchased my desktop directly from them. Might be able to get what I need from them as far as correct reinstallation software and drivers. Worth a shot, I think. In any event, I will check back here soon and often.

    Whompus
     
    rollinondubs,
    #30
  12. 2004/07/26
    dobhar Lifetime Subscription

    dobhar Inactive

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    rollinondubs...

    Did you have a look at the Dell links I posted for reinstalling software for your Dell Laptop?
     
    dobhar,
    #31
  13. 2004/07/26
    rollinondubs

    rollinondubs Inactive Thread Starter

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    Time for me to finally turn in but I will check them out first thing tomorrow.

    Many thanks for all the help.
     
    rollinondubs,
    #32
  14. 2004/07/27
    PeteC

    PeteC SuperGeek Staff

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    rollinondubs

    First an apology - I must have been having a bad day yesterday - a lot on my mind at the moment. I completely misread your thread from the beginning with my mind registering 31 Gb instead of Mb - this muddied the waters a little.
    Yes, indicative of lack of drivers, they clearly have not been loaded. If you right click on one of those entries > Properties there should be a message to that effect. The drivers are specific to the hardware on the laptop - your desktop supplementary disks will not help.

    In the meantime I will check out the links Kent posted and come back.

    BTW - do you now see a boot.ini file?
     
    PeteC,
    #33
  15. 2004/07/27
    PeteC

    PeteC SuperGeek Staff

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    PeteC,
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  16. 2004/07/27
    rollinondubs

    rollinondubs Inactive Thread Starter

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    Ok. Here's where I'm at. I show 2 local discs.

    C: Free Space 31.6 GB
    Total Size 37.2

    E: Free Space 31 GB
    Total Size 31 GB

    Both of these are capable of being formatted now.

    I still do not see any boot.ini file. I did a search on both drives and got nothing.

    I have my Dell Drivers and Utilities disc for Inspiron in the drive, and when I right click on the question marked drivers and search for them on the cd and on my comp, I get nothing. I did, however, draw some luck with the modem, and the driver is installed now.

    Also, I've noticed that although there are no folders to show for it, when searching for files, it seems to be searching through all my previously installed programs, which seems strange to me since I can't find them anywhere.

    Feel like I'm making progress, yet I'm still stymied about most of it!!!!!

    Onward!!!!
     
    rollinondubs,
    #35
  17. 2004/07/27
    rollinondubs

    rollinondubs Inactive Thread Starter

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    My goodness. I think I'm on to something. In searching on my driver and utilities disc, I got into the Dell Utilities platform that lists all the drivers. I have begun to extract them and they are being installed on the comp. Thus far the modem and video drivers have been installed. Will continue with this and see if I can manage to erase those yellow questions marks.
     
    rollinondubs,
    #36
  18. 2004/07/27
    rollinondubs

    rollinondubs Inactive Thread Starter

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    Question marks gone. This box is working just like she used to and all seems good. I'm currently installing my virus protection.

    I went to disc management and am now seeing the following:

    Disk O

    E: 31 MB FAT
    healthy

    C: 37.22 GB NTFS
    healthy (System)


    I guess I'm curious now how to get this thing so that I don't have to choose between XP systems are startup. If this is possible.

    Like I said, for all my progress, I'm still a bit stymied!!!
     
    rollinondubs,
    #37
  19. 2004/07/27
    PeteC

    PeteC SuperGeek Staff

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    Great News :) Persistence pays off - sometimes!

    The apparent lack of a boot.ini file is very puzzling - we need that to resolve the choice of two operating systems on boot.

    Please confirm that you have done the following ....

    Windows Explorer > Tools > Folder Options > View

    Check 'Show hidden files and folders'

    Uncheck 'Hide protected operating system files' - accept the warning > yes

    Then go to the C: drive - boot.ini should be listed in the file list showing beneath the Windows Folder.

    Windows search will not find hidden files, etc unless told to specifically.
     
    PeteC,
    #38
  20. 2004/07/27
    rollinondubs

    rollinondubs Inactive Thread Starter

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    I shw only a boot configuration and no boot.ini

    When I click on the boot (configuration settings) 1KB, it opens into notepad and gives the following:

    [boot loader]
    timeout=30
    default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS
    [operatingsystems]
    multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS= "Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect
    multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS= "Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect
     
    rollinondubs,
    #39
  21. 2004/07/27
    PeteC

    PeteC SuperGeek Staff

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    OK - that's boot.ini by another name - no idea why/how that's occurred :confused:

    You have duplicate entries for the operating system.

    Two ways to deal with this, but

    Safest way - right click My Computer > Properties > Advanced > Start up and Recovery > Settings - Uncheck 'Time to display list of Operating Systems'

    While you're there, under System Recovery uncheck 'Automatically restart'. In the event of an error Windows will default to a BSOD (Blue screen of Death) and not restart. Any error messages can then be read and posted here if the need arises.

    Everything else OK?
     
    PeteC,
    #40
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