Dell E310 Will Not Boot

[gjt86]

Hi guys, I am fixing a friend's computer which is a Dimension E310. I am doing a reformat for him and upon after doing so, I cannot get passed the dell startup screen to even get Windows to boot. I was told that for Dells with SATA drives, you need to get the drivers on a floppy and load them up during startup, however upon putting the floppy in, it loads and I get "Drive does not support Power management modes" followed by "cfgmgr Failed". I am a bit lost here and would like any help regarding this situation as I am still learning more about repair. Thanks!

 

[gjt86]

Forgot to add, once the startup screen is done loading, it reboots itself and does this all over again - loading the start-up screen. I have ran the diagnostic tool and got all tests passed when running the "Cannot Boot OS" test.

 

[gjt86]

Tried resetting the CMOS BIOS so that the SATA drive boots first following with the CD hard drive booting 2nd. No luck. Running out of ideas.

 

[itadakimasu]

the only time i've had a problem like that with a dell, the memory was in a bad configuration.

i had hastily put the ram sticks in without putting them in the proper slots, sometimes windows would install, sometimes it wouldn't... it would install but then lock up.. all sorts of problems.

sata drives are fine... sometimes the first sata is the only one enabled by default in bios but thats.

Now, if its restarting once it starts booting up you have a possible driver issue.. can you boot into safe mode?

 

[kwabena]

the only time i've had a problem like that with a dell, the memory was in a bad configuration.

i had hastily put the ram sticks in without putting them in the proper slots, sometimes windows would install, sometimes it wouldn't... it would install but then lock up.. all sorts of problems.

sata drives are fine... sometimes the first sata is the only one enabled by default in bios but thats.

Now, if its restarting once it starts booting up you have a possible driver issue.. can you boot into safe mode?

Yes! i can boot into safe mode. I can even install other applications in safe mode.

 

[rockyjohn]

kwabena -

Note that you are responding to a year old thread.

If you are having problems, I suggest describing the symptoms in detail, how they started (in response to any other changes in your system - including software updates or external forces), what troubleshooting steps you have tried thus far -either to diagnose or repair the problem, and list the components of your system.