Stupid question, quick answer - please help

eggs420 · Aug 18, 2004, 11:14 PM

He isn't booting from CDROM, else it wouldn't prompt him to return to setup or boot into windows..Booting from the XP cd should most times display "Press any key to boot from CDROM..." (sometimes) and then it will kick into the blue/white windows setup screen. I suggest poking around at booting from cdrom again, as it really sounds like you are booting into a previous setup session on the harddrive, and not from the cdrom.

If Dell support can't help you (how you want them to help, at least), pick up partition magic. It isn't overly expensive and comes in handy any time you need to muck with partitions. Nice program for sure.

gt123 · Aug 19, 2004, 06:55 AM

eggs - no. I've been booting from the CD-ROM. I set it in my BIOS, and i selected it from boot options at startup. Im absolutely sure, POSITIVE, that i have been booting from CD-ROM.

Anyways, i called dell and they fixed everything beautifully. They had me use Dell Dimension Resource CD for some special bootup and enter a bunch of commands in a prompt, which actually deleted all the partitions. I reinstalled, and im good as new...Thanks for all your guys help, i thought there would be a simple answer to this which is why i kept trying to figure it out here. Maybe i'll just call Dell from the start next time...

thanks especially to twisted and gutterpunk, but i have one more question - i installed norton antivirus and set up spywareblaster and installed all my backed up programs...now what's a good functional firewall i can use? that won't get in the way of games

Aug 18, 2004, 11:14 PM	#31
eggs420 my bud > yours Join Date: Apr 2004 Location: chicago Posts: 399 Rep Power: 0	He isn't booting from CDROM, else it wouldn't prompt him to return to setup or boot into windows..Booting from the XP cd should most times display "Press any key to boot from CDROM..." (sometimes) and then it will kick into the blue/white windows setup screen. I suggest poking around at booting from cdrom again, as it really sounds like you are booting into a previous setup session on the harddrive, and not from the cdrom. If Dell support can't help you (how you want them to help, at least), pick up partition magic. It isn't overly expensive and comes in handy any time you need to muck with partitions. Nice program for sure.

Aug 19, 2004, 06:55 AM	Thread Starter #32
gt123 DriverHeaven Junior Member Join Date: Feb 2004 Posts: 92 Rep Power: 0	eggs - no. I've been booting from the CD-ROM. I set it in my BIOS, and i selected it from boot options at startup. Im absolutely sure, POSITIVE, that i have been booting from CD-ROM. Anyways, i called dell and they fixed everything beautifully. They had me use Dell Dimension Resource CD for some special bootup and enter a bunch of commands in a prompt, which actually deleted all the partitions. I reinstalled, and im good as new...Thanks for all your guys help, i thought there would be a simple answer to this which is why i kept trying to figure it out here. Maybe i'll just call Dell from the start next time... thanks especially to twisted and gutterpunk, but i have one more question - i installed norton antivirus and set up spywareblaster and installed all my backed up programs...now what's a good functional firewall i can use? that won't get in the way of games