[Primevi1]

I have a 4 year old Dell Dimension 1150 desktop that I was trying sell to someone. I formatted the HDD and reinstalled a clean copy of XP and Office XP. It worked perfect but then after a few reboots it suddenly would not boot up. Infact it actually gets stuck loading the BIOS. The loading bar goes about 1/12 of the way then freezes and the HDD lights stays on like its looking for something. I tried resetting the CMOS to no avail. I am unable to get to the point where the keyboard becomes functional so there isnt much user input I can do.

Is the HDD broken (Dont understand how as it worked perfect with no clicks/abnormalities) or is there some other way to fix this?

Thanks for the help

Edited by Primevi1, 29 February 2008 - 08:07 AM.

[Advertisements]

Hi Primevi1. Welcome to Geeks2Go!

Have you tried the usual 'F8' during boot-up to bring up the 'Advanced Options Menu'? From there you can choose either "Last known good configuration", or "Safe Mode". If Windows loads in safe mode but not in normal mode, it's usually an indication of a bad device driver. Find and remove that and you should get normal Windows to boot again.

However, that's a long-shot in this case because you say it was working fine (with no new drivers added I assume) so it's quite possible a hardware problem. This should be detected during the POST, causing it to 'beep' more than the usual short single beep. The length and number of these beeps gives a clue as to what's wrong. Are you not getting any beeps at all during the POST, or just didn't think to mention it?

[pip22]

Hi Primevi1. Welcome to Geeks2Go!

Have you tried the usual 'F8' during boot-up to bring up the 'Advanced Options Menu'? From there you can choose either "Last known good configuration", or "Safe Mode". If Windows loads in safe mode but not in normal mode, it's usually an indication of a bad device driver. Find and remove that and you should get normal Windows to boot again.

However, that's a long-shot in this case because you say it was working fine (with no new drivers added I assume) so it's quite possible a hardware problem. This should be detected during the POST, causing it to 'beep' more than the usual short single beep. The length and number of these beeps gives a clue as to what's wrong. Are you not getting any beeps at all during the POST, or just didn't think to mention it?

[Primevi1]

I dont even get to the point where the keyboard is powered up and there are no beeps it just freezes and the hdd light stays on until i manually turn it off.

[Will_00]

You may be able to boot from disc - if this point is reached. If not, you may be able to install Ubuntu - or some other Linux system to a disc and see if it will be automatically detected.

[Primevi1]

Nope doesnt even get to the point where it can read disks. It starts up and almost immediatly freezes.

Any other thoughts how to work this problem...i know its a strange one?

[Project Life]

Hi bro,
At first I'll ask you some question ( maybe this can helping me to give you the right solution ):
1. Are you sure this problem from HDD ?!
2. Did you check the RAM ?!
3. What about your motherboad, the problem is not from it ?!

P.M: I'm sorry for my language cuz am not very well in english language.

Edited by Project Life, 27 February 2008 - 09:43 PM.

[Primevi1]

No im not positive its the hdd i just thought it might be because the hdd activity light stayed on.

Its definetly not the mobo because it has led's working on it.

Ram is a possibility but i dont think that is the problem unless its fried because i removed and then replaced it.

Any other suggestions?

[Primevi1]

Common I know someone in here knows whats possibly going wrong

[Primevi1]

Please...

[Will_00]

I would recommend remove everything plugged in, except the monitor, keyboard, and power cord then try it.

Also, have you recently tried to upgrade service packs?

[Primevi1]

Yes I had a clean copy with everything fresh, including drivers and windows updates.

The real problem is that something just isnt allowing it to even load any of the system components.