[Mary Poppins]

Yes that is correct, booting the computer off the CD will wipe the Windows 7 installation and install XP fresh.

Most likely the third disc would be third-party applications, such as Dell's recommendations (i.e. what they get paid to install on your new computer) on "useful" programs you may not ever need... If this is the case I recommend not to install that disc!

But kudos to Dell for transferring warranty and sending out discs...

Yes, I agree that it is great of DELL to do this. I will take your recommendation and install just the XP and the drivers. The guy also had me run a diagnostics test on the computer to try to find out why it shuts down and restarts whenever it wants, but there were no problems. He said that he thought installing XP PRO back on may cause it to quit doing this...does this make sense?

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Yes since the system may not be able to handle Win7 if it doesn't have the minimum requirements.

[rshaffer61]

Yes since the system may not be able to handle Win7 if it doesn't have the minimum requirements.

[Troy]

Also if the Windows 7 is not genuine it will shut itself down every hour or something like that...

[diabillic]

Yes, non-genuine Windows 7 shuts down every 2 hours. Same thing will happen if you are running the RC 7100 build past June 1st. I am actually quite surprised they sent you the discs free of charge, but my hat goes off to them.

[Mary Poppins]

Thanks for the info on Windows 7 shutting down. DELL even shipped the discs FedEx overnight - and gave me a tracking number. They will be delivered this afternoon. I am assuming they are sending them free of charge because the computer is still under warranty, but am not sure this is why. Can't wait to get this thing fixed properly!

Thanks to everyone for all the help and advice.

[rshaffer61]

Very impressive and we will stick with you till everything is backup and running again correctly.

[Mary Poppins]

I received the discs from DELL and am now on my 3rd attempt to install XP PRO. Something is not going right. It asks for me to select a partition, which I did, then it formatted it. After installing files, it rebooted and started installing XP PRO again. It said to take any floppy discs out, which I took the CD out after formatting and installing a second time, but it would not do anything when it rebooted - black screen w/cursor.

So I am now on the third attempt...have selected a partition, formatted it, installed files, etc. and it rebooted (with CD in again this time) & it just comes to a screen saying "Press any key to boot from CD" - so, now what? I am sitting here staring at it not knowing what I have done wrong.

I searched the net and found out that I am supposed to take the disc out and reinsert it while it is formatting...wish they would have put this info on the disc! I am now in the process of waiting to see if this method works.......

Edited by Mary Poppins, 21 May 2010 - 02:42 PM.

[rshaffer61]

It should go through the complete installation and thn say it is restarting the system. At that time you remove the cdrom and the system should then boot into windows where it will complete the installation and ask for any drivers disks needed.

[Mary Poppins]

Thanks...I posted my problem under the XP topic forum. It is now trying to setup again. I will edit my post there to let you know if it is working. I think I have done the partition portion of the setup wrong.