Re-Installing Vista

[kpowell911]

Hi, Basically I installed a "codec" which fucked up my computer, Meaning it would only run in safe mode, In any other mode it lasted a few seconds before it just went into blue screen.

I had a look for my discs to reinstall vista, But i had lost them, So a phone call to dell and £30 later the replacement discs arrived.

However, I've installed the reinstallation vista DVD, Clicked on the drive to install it too, It got to100% then restarted.

However, When it restarted i just get a black screen with white text saying

A disk read error occured

Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart

However, Each time i do that, i get the same screen come back I've tried this with the dvd in and out.

Any ideas?

thanks

 

[Scottydog]

Try going into your BIOS and loading "Factory Default" or "Fail Safe" Settings to take your BIOS back to settings optimized for your computer.

Then find your boot priorities and make your HDD the 1st Priority and your CD Drive 2nd Priority

failing that, make the CD Drive 1st Priority and HDD 2nd

 

[kpowell911]

how can i change boot priorities when the computer only goes to this screen? press F2 to enter set up?

 

[Scottydog]

how can i change boot priorities when the computer only goes to this screen? press F2 to enter set up?

Keep pressing F2 as soon as you turn it on until BIOS appears.

Sometimes it is Del or F1 on Dells iirc

 

[kpowell911]

Right presssed F2, Went to boot device configuration and switched it to boot off hdd and then cd and i get

diskette drive 0 seek failure

press f1 to contine

When i press f1 the original screen comes up

 

[FiDoDiDo]

Couldn't you just have used the Dell restore partition?

 

[kpowell911]

they said it wasnt on my system!

 

[Scottydog]

Right presssed F2, Went to boot device configuration and switched it to boot off hdd and then cd and i get



When i press f1 the original screen comes up

Did you also reset/restore the BIOS to factory settings?

Also have you taken the case off? I think some dells need the BIOS reset after doing this.

 

[kpowell911]

nope havent taken the case off

how do you restore the bios settings? load defaults?

 

[Scottydog]

nope havent taken the case off

how do you restore the bios settings? load defaults?

Yep

 

[FiDoDiDo]

When it boots check the top right of the screen you can have it access the boot once menu with something like the F10 key instead of changing the boot order.

 

[kpowell911]

Yep

still the same

When i press F12 to goto boot menu i get the diskette failure message!

 

[Scottydog]

hmm, resetting the BIOS and making CD Drive 1st Priority and HDD 2nd should work :S

I hope none of your hardware is fooked.

If you don't have a floppy then disable everything to do with it because it is searching for a "diskette" which doesn't exist.

Also stop the BIOS halting on errors

 

[kpowell911]

how could i tell that?

 

[kpowell911]

managed to get to boot menu but im confused

SATA-0: installed
SATA-1: installed
SATA-4: installed
SATA-5: none

WTF

 

[kpowell911]

right managed to get it to boot from cd,says windows is loading files with a bar

 

[Mike_182]

Diskette failure = you have an FDD in that isn't bootable usually.

 

[kpowell911]

what does that mean? FDD?

 

[Scottydog]

what does that mean? FDD?

Floppy Disk Drive

 

[kpowell911]

Ah, ive googled this. I dont have a floppy disc drie so changed this the a drive to none in cmos.

I'm now booting from the cd disc,i got a black screen with a white bar and now im installing windows but it seems to be doing very little theres an egg timer and please wait...

 

[kpowell911]

right where do i want to install windows:

Disk 0 Partition 1 Datapart1
Disk 1 partition 2 recovery
disk 1 partion 3


thanks

 

[FiDoDiDo]

lol Looks like you do have a Dell recovery partition then.

I guess Disk 1 partition 3, what size is it?

 

[kpowell911]

s**t i clicked disk 0

they are twin 250gb

 

[shadowsun]

Dell often installed hard drives in pairs to create whats known as a RAID array. Idea being that if one drive fails the other one has your data mirrored. With many Dell machines, if you keep pressing F12 on boot, it should take you into a special Dell utility menu. From there you can normally check your disks, boot from any inserted CD's or boot from the utility/recovery partition. If you can boot from a recovery partition this is your best bet because it will restore you machine to the factory shipped state.