Problem with loading non-Dell WinXP program on a Dell Dimension 1100

[Teddybearmiller]

Hello,
I have friend who bought a Dell Dimenson 1100 desktop. Her windows crashed. Since she did not receive any load discs with her computer she bought a non-Dell WindowsXP load disc. It will not load the OS system. She keeps getting blue screen with a blinking curser and that's it. She has tried several methods to install but none work.
Does anyone have a soluction? She bought the computer from a reseller. When she contacted Dell Support she was told that the Tag number was registered to someone else's name. I figure that either the computer is a repo and resold or it was stolen and sold by the reseller. Either way she paid $3000 for it. I checked on the Dell support site and the Tag is registered and the warraty expired Aug 2007. This lady does not have the money to buy another computer. I think she got fleeced by the reseller. Does anyone have a solution or suggestions?

 

[Zoron]

At that price, I'd say she got more than fleeced...

Anyway, you need to identify the chipset that the computer has on its motherboard. Once that is done, you need to download what are know as "text mode" drivers and get them on a floppy (you'll need a USB floppy drive unless the computer has one). You'll need to load these drivers as you're booting into Win XP setup (the F6 to load additional drivers prompt). You can also "slipstream" the drivers into your XP CD using a program called nLite... there are many tutorials on the web that will step you through the process.

 

[Emerald]

can she boot into Save Mode?

has she try to take out the extra cards like modem?

only use one of the memories?

was she able to install any of the drivers from the Dell website?

 

[Zoron]

Alternatively, you could go into the BIOS setup and set the hard drive(s) to RAID / ATA mode rather than RAID / AHCI mode... this will allow you to load XP without the blue screens and without finding the text mode driver I referred to.