Dell Inspirion 1300 Black Screen

[clemkonan]

I am trying to help a friend resolve a no boot problem with her laptop. We get a black screen at boot up and trying to reinstall with the XP disk gives a message ..." inspecting your system..." then all goes black.

Suspecting internet activity and possibly a boot virus I downloaded a boot disk ( Dr Dos) and was able to get to A> but strangely it seems to be holding this in memory and will not let me load WD Clear

I added WD clear to the same CD but cannot see it on a DIR command

Next it installed it ( WD Clear) on a separate disk and again the DR Dos loaded and I could not see WD Clear so I could not launch it!
I have to assume that I am doing this incorrectly so can someone give me a step by step solution. I am not an expert.

My plan was to try to reformat the entire HD and reload Windows.

Thanks

 

[edklite]

Get a hold of a W98 (or ME) boot floppy. Pop it in and run fdisk at the "A" prompt. Delete all the partitions.


then you should be able to boot from xp cd and install

 

[pscowboy]

If you have a boot sector virus, formatting will not get rid of it.

You will have to perform a debug routine that would take about 2 minutes.

After that, you do a fresh install of XP.

You will need a W98 (or ME) boot floppy diskette. Delete drivespace on this disc & add debug.exe. If you are near a 98 machine, copy debug onto the floppy from C:\Windows\Command. If not you can download it from the net.

Pop in the floppy - start up - at the "A" prompt type debug. You will get a minus sign prompt (-) . Type in the following lines; hitting Enter after each one. There are no letter O's except in the mov command.

f 200 L200 0
a 100
mov ax,301
mov bx,200
mov cx,1
mov dx,0080
int 13
int 3
(hit enter again)
g=100
q

Remove the floppy; pop in the XP cd; Ctrl-Alt-Delete; and install.

 

[clemkonan]

Thanks for the feedback and sorry to reveal my ignorance but must of the boot disks I am coming across are exactly that " disks" . I am being prompted for a floppy and I do not have a floppy on my PC or the laptop I am trying to fix.

Is there a work around that will allow me to trick these batch files into extracting or copying to a folder on my HD so that I can then create a bootable cd?

 

[pscowboy]

I can help you create a cd to do the job.

What cd burning app do you have? Would be great if you have Nero Burning Rom version 6 (which is what I have).

I've created a bootable cd containing Dr-Dos using Nero's native dos boot image which happens to be Caldera Dr-Dos. By adding Dr-Dos's disk01 to a temp folder (test) along with the .img, you can burn the cd in the CD-Rom (bootable) section.

Let me know.

 

[clemkonan]

Much appreciated , yes I do have access to Nero and can easily update it to version 6

regards
Clemkonan

 

[pscowboy]

Create a "New" folder on your "C" drive, and name it drdos.

Go to this site:

http://www.devedia.com/dosghost/dos/downl_2.asp#drdos

Scroll down until you find v703drdos Beta - click on that. You will find yourself at an ftp download site of all the drdos utilities.

You can download them all to the new drdos folder, but you only need debug.exe; fdisk.com; & format.com.

Download by right-clicking each one - choose "Save Target As" - and direct the download to the drdos folder.

Next, go to Program Files\Ahead\Nero and locate Dosbootimage.ima and copy and paste it to the drdos folder.

Fire up Nero - choose Nero Burning Rom. Should get New Compilation. On the left side, scroll down to CD-ROM (Boot) and highlight it.

Over on the right side, click the radio button for Image File & browse to the drdos folder to locate it so that it shows in the address space.

On the bottom half, under Enable Expert Settings, make sure the four categories are: Floppy Emulation 1.44; Nero Boot Loader v6.0; 07c0; 1.

Go up to the Burn tab and make sure that Write and Finalize cd are checked. Change the Write Speed to half of what your burner is capable of, then click New at the upper right corner.

On the right side, third pane over, locate the drdos folder and click it so that all of its' files show up in the fourth pane. Drag and drop them all to the second pane. Locate the grayish cd disc with the flame on it near the top under the word Window. Click this to return to the Burn page; insert a blank cd-r disc into your burner; change Copies to two; then click burn. Quickly check off Verify Written Data at the bottom left.

OK the Data Verify success (second copy should start) - click Done (bottom left) - Exit out whereupon Nero will ask you to save this. I would, and call it drdos; for you to have in the future. Then back to your desktop.

You now have a bootable cd with which you can invoke debug. You will find it on the "D" drive after the cd boots up. Follow the routine I gave you in a previous post.

Print out this one and the debug routine to work easier.

If the laptops' hard drive is okay, XP will install fresh & clean.

 

[clemkonan]

Sincere thanks I will post back with the outcome

 

[clemkonan]

I can see all of the files if I load the CD on my working PC but from the laptop I can only get to [DR Dos] A:> and doing a DIR dos not show any of the files I get

Command Com
DR Dos
Oak
NR
WWBMU
Readme
Dconfig
Autodos 7

My Nero was actually Nero Express 6
but I selected boot Disc and followed the wizard

 

[pscowboy]

Did you test the bootability of the cd on your comp first?
Did it give you an "A" prompt when it finished coming up?
Were you then able to access the cd contents by typing D: (then hit Enter)?

If yes to all three, the cd was made properly & will function as I advertised.

At the "A" prompt, type D: & hit enter. You will get the Cd drive. Just type debug, and go from there.

The laptop has its' cd drive first in the BIOS? Correct?

If so, the executables on the cd will create a "D" drive to represent the Rom drive. You merely have to go there to access debug. The extra files you put on the cd, other than the content of the image, will only show up on the so-called "D" drive.

The files that you've shown here, are part of the image's floppy emulation of "A"

 

[clemkonan]

I can get to the >A on my working desktop however I get a rectangular blinking cursor which does not accept keystrokes. So I cannot change to C:/ or D:?

I am going to try to create the boot disc again

 

[clemkonan]

Success, sweet success. The problem was that DOS as great as it is cannot handle a remote keyboard. I went back to my my Legacy keyboard ( I think thats what it is called) and the rest worked like a charm.

I will check your site for a place to donate, folks like you must not go un-rewarded

Regards
Clemkonan

 

[pscowboy]

I love happy endings.