Looking for dell xps 600 install disc

[Branden]

short version: looking for download for dell xps 600 windows xp install disc ISO.

long version: my sister-in-law got a new machine, gave me her old XPS 600 to fix up and someone in need to donate it to.
the install/recovery disc has long since been lost, dell won't ship her replacement due to name change and address change (don't believe she's the same person who bought the machine years ago)
i can't just use any XP install disc as it won't find the HDD during install due to missing drivers. the HDD is fine. i've downloaded drivers from dell's support website, tried putting various drivers on floppy (and even tried slipstreaming them onto new disc), and pressing F2 to load them during setup. none of the drivers dell provides allow XP to find HDD. i'm no noob, please don't ask if i remembered to unzip drivers or enable the floppy in the bios.
i'm not looking to install vista or 7 as that would require purchasing them. i'm not looking to pirate or steal a copy of windows XP, i'm not asking for serial key since it's still on the sticker on the case. there is nothing nefarious in what i'm trying to do.
it seems my only option is to install from original disc, and i'm having a hell of a time trying to find one.

if anyone knows where i can download an install disc image for a dell xps 600 (from any source: FTP, rapidshare, torrents, etc) it'd be greatly appreciated!

 

[FALC0N]

short version: looking for download for dell xps 600 windows xp install disc ISO.

long version: my sister-in-law got a new machine, gave me her old XPS 600 to fix up and someone in need to donate it to.
the install/recovery disc has long since been lost, dell won't ship her replacement due to name change and address change (don't believe she's the same person who bought the machine years ago)
i can't just use any XP install disc as it won't find the HDD during install due to missing drivers. the HDD is fine. i've downloaded drivers from dell's support website, tried putting various drivers on floppy (and even tried slipstreaming them onto new disc), and pressing F2 to load them during setup. none of the drivers dell provides allow XP to find HDD. i'm no noob, please don't ask if i remembered to unzip drivers or enable the floppy in the bios.
!

Yes you can use any XP disk. But it must be an OEM copy to use the key you have.

Its not a driver problem. That is why drivers are not working. Look elsewhere.

 

[Branden]

thanks for the suggestion, falcon.
i found and downloaded a dell oem xp iso, still didn't work though.

the drivers hosted on dell's website must have been the wrong ones or mislabelled or corrupt, i downloaded the same drivers but from elsewhere and xp installation were able to load and use them fine.

 

[FALC0N]

thanks for the suggestion, falcon.
i found and downloaded a dell oem xp iso, still didn't work though.

the drivers hosted on dell's website must have been the wrong ones or mislabelled or corrupt, i downloaded the same drivers but from elsewhere and xp installation were able to load and use them fine.

Im happy you got it resolved, but it likely wasn't a driver issue. XP will see a hard drive with that chipset. Something else was going on.

 

[Branden]

well the fact is i had to load drivers from a floppy during installation, so i've got no reason to believe it wasn't the drivers.
as a side note, even when i did get XP up and running the drivers provided by dell weren't the correct ones for the audio and nic either.
i suspect dell is hosting the wrong drivers, or there isn't actually an XPS 600 inside the case (and now that it's working i don't care enough to bother to check either way)

 

[FALC0N]

well the fact is i had to load drivers from a floppy during installation, so i've got no reason to believe it wasn't the drivers.
as a side note, even when i did get XP up and running the drivers provided by dell weren't the correct ones for the audio and nic either.
i suspect dell is hosting the wrong drivers, or there isn't actually an XPS 600 inside the case (and now that it's working i don't care enough to bother to check either way)

There is plenty of reason to believe it wasn't the drivers. XP should have seen the drive regardless. And its just too coincidental that the download drivers didn't work either.

I'm sure something else was going on there. But like you said, it working. Thats all that matter now.

 

[whitmj]

I'm having EXACTLY the same problem branden has described. Dell XPS 600, using a Dell OEM XP disk and it blue screens after the last boot. This one does not have a floppy drive installed. XP install insists on seeing the floppy for third party driver.
I have seen several posts on this and most indicate that this is one of the early machines that had an SATA hard disk installed.
Dell has an NVIDIA storage driver that supports RAID. Gotta admit this is just plain stoopid frustrating. I have to go find an "Operational" floppy disk drive to install so that I can get beyond this blue screen...or I can trash a fully operational PC. I'm tempted to pull the dang SATA drive and install an IDE.

 

[Branden]

whitmj, be forewarned, the drivers provided by dell on the xps 600 product page are not the correct ones! sorry, don't remember where i found the working ones.
yes, you will have to temporarily hook up a floppy drive to install XP (fortunately i had an external USB floppy drive around that made it less of a hassle, just had to enable it in the BIOS).

installing to IDE is an option, or you could just install vista or 7, they both saw the sata HDD no problem.

 

[FALC0N]

whitmj, be forewarned, the drivers provided by dell on the xps 600 product page are not the correct ones! sorry, don't remember where i found the working ones.
yes, you will have to temporarily hook up a floppy drive to install XP (fortunately i had an external USB floppy drive around that made it less of a hassle, just had to enable it in the BIOS).

installing to IDE is an option, or you could just install vista or 7, they both saw the sata HDD no problem.

This is not what you described in your post though. He is experiencing what looks like an AHCI issue.

 

[FALC0N]

I'm having EXACTLY the same problem branden has described. Dell XPS 600, using a Dell OEM XP disk and it blue screens after the last boot. This one does not have a floppy drive installed. XP install insists on seeing the floppy for third party driver.
I have seen several posts on this and most indicate that this is one of the early machines that had an SATA hard disk installed.
Dell has an NVIDIA storage driver that supports RAID. Gotta admit this is just plain stoopid frustrating. I have to go find an "Operational" floppy disk drive to install so that I can get beyond this blue screen...or I can trash a fully operational PC. I'm tempted to pull the dang SATA drive and install an IDE.

This looks like a classic AHCI issue.

Look in the bios for hard drive controller option that allows you to choose between AHCI and IDE. It you find it, set it to IDE. That should fix your problem.

If its not there, then you will need to get the chipset driver to support ACHI.

 

[Branden]

falcon, i know you don't believe it's a driver issue but that's what it is.
the xps 600 is from 2004-ish, it's sata has no option for ahci vs ide mode.
in order to install XP on a sata HDD in this machine a floppy disk with drivers for the sata controller is required, this is a small problem since the machine doesn't have a floppy drive.
without a spare floppy drive and the correct drivers there are only 2 other options for installing an o/s on the machine: install on a pata (ide) drive or install vista/7 as it has correct drivers included.

 

[FALC0N]

falcon, i know you don't believe it's a driver issue but that's what it is.
the xps 600 is from 2004-ish, it's sata has no option for ahci vs ide mode.
in order to install XP on a sata HDD in this machine a floppy disk with drivers for the sata controller is required, this is a small problem since the machine doesn't have a floppy drive.
without a spare floppy drive and the correct drivers there are only 2 other options for installing an o/s on the machine: install on a pata (ide) drive or install vista/7 as it has correct drivers included.

Its not a driver issue, like I said the first time. Its an AHCI issue. The system is preconfigured to use AHCI.

Are you sure it doesn't have that bios option. Its not always obvious.

If it isn't there at all, then just slipstream the Nforce 4 drivers on the disk.

 

[BusterPhysic]

Its not a driver issue, like I said the first time. Its an AHCI issue. The system is preconfigured to use AHCI.

Are you sure it doesn't have that bios option. Its not always obvious.

If it isn't there at all, then just slipstream the Nforce 4 drivers on the disk.

FALCON, this is a driver problem.

I have an XPS 600. It ships with OEM Dell
WinXP and also a Dell Driver disk.

I also have both a Microsoft WinXp32 &
a WinXP64 installation disk.

Everything is circa 2005.

My system runs 4 SATA in RAID configuration.

None of the installations will install without
the Dell Driver disk. They all stall out and ask for
the 3rd party driver.

This is true even with the latest XPS 600 bios (A11)
which does have the RAID option available.

I can't speak for disks fresher than 2005, however.

Cheers!