Dell inspiron 6000 won't boot from XP CD with large drive

[enjoyincubus]

Hey guys

I have the a problem with my Dell Inspiron 6000. I wanted to change my 60 GB HD with a 320 GB Western Digital HD. I knew about the maximum 137 GB that the BIOS could recognoze, but when I booted from the XP CD it looked like it could recognize the entire 320 GB HD, so I thought OK and tried to make only one partition of 320 GB.

After doing this when I start my laptop I only get the blinking cursor in the upper left corner. So I pretty much knew that it was because I partioned my drive to large.

And this is where my REAL problem begins. I am trying to boot from the XP CD to make more partitions under the 137 GB limit. However my computer won't boot from the CD and let me delete the 320 GB partition. I jut get a black screen?! My computer just refuses to boot from the CD and it's also unable to boot from the hard drive (which never worked after the installation).

What to do? Help is very appreciated.

Best Regards

Mathias

 

[Guest]

Did you hit F12 when you see the BIOS splash screen and choose the CD drive to boot from?

P.S. Please don't hijack threads and then post a duplicate post in a new thread.

 

[enjoyincubus]

Yup. Did that but it still doesn't work.

 

[Guest]

Do you get the message to Hit any key to boot from the CD?

 

[enjoyincubus]

Yes I do. And when I hit a key the screen just go black. Nothing happens.

 

[Guest]

Darik's Boot and Nuke? http://www.dban.org/

 

[enjoyincubus]

Yes maybe that will work. I was also suggested to download Western Digital Hard Drive software and burn it on a cd and then boot from that instead of booting from the XP cd.

I will try both suggestions and hopefully one of them will do the trick.

Otherwise I'll return