S***! Now I've really screwed-up!

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Doug R

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I finally got my Dell Latitude CPt S500GT straightened out. It used to crash for no good reason and the screen would say, "Windows/system32 corrupt or missing." Okay, I finally fixed that problem and did all the update downloads, anti-virus, AdAware, and ZoneAlarm firewall. Only one thing left: Upgrade from BIOS 0.8 to BIOS 16. The BIOS 16 is supposed to prevent any possibility of another crash with the screen notifying, "No bootable devices," not that I had the problem, I didn't. The system did run v-e-r-y slow and I attributed that to the out of date BIOS.

Okay, so I downloaded the updated BIOS to a floppy on my desktop, and following the instructions from the floppy downloaded it to my Latitude CPt laptop. Now the screen has the exact problem that the program was supposed to avoid: "No bootable devices--strike F1 to retry boot, F2 for setup utility." Okay, so I reformatted and re-installed XP Pro, but everytime I re-boot, that "No bootable devices" screen appears. It only allows me to re-install the XP Pro again....like chaising my tail round and round! Does anybody have any ideas how to get this problem straightened out? If I could afford it, what I'd really like to do is use the laptop as a shotgun target, but my wife would kill me if she found out! :mad:
 
Place your Windows XP CD into your CD-ROM and Reboot your PC

XP's setup program will automatically start and files will be loaded to memory

When you reach the Welcome to Setup screen choose the Repair option by pressing R

This will open the Recovery Console

The list of Windows installations will appear

As you only have one installation on your PC you need to press the number which is relevant to your installations location. This, obviously will typically be 1

Type in your Administrator password. If no administrator password exists, simply press Enter

At the command prompt type: CD C:\Windows\System32\ConfigREN system system.oldCOPY C:\Windows\Repair\system

Finally remove your XP CD from the CD-ROM and then type Exit

Reboot your machine to see if the the problem has been cured
 
Sounds like a hard drive setting is wrong in your CMOS, causing it not to detect your HDD. You do know you have to clear CMOS when you update BIOS, don't you?
 
Thanks Guys,

A $20 donation goes into the mail tonight to keep this site going.
Ahhhhh...the shotgun is put away, and my wife has no idea how close that laptop was to becoming litter in the trash can. [Just kidding]

TheMajor's instructions made no difference because the screens didn't come-up that I expected. I'm not sure what CMOS is, but I assume that it was the F2 screen of options. I noticed that the hard drive ability wasn't activated...strange that I never changed it to inactive? Apparently when I updated the BIOS, the settings also changed too? I'm no expert. I'm still scratching my about that one. Anyway, the updated BIOS is installed and the system boots up normally now. Now to start all the downloads all over again! :D
 
Yeah, it's a learning experience for me. It'll take years to get everything figured out with these computers but I least I know more now than I did a few years ago.
 
beedubaya said:
You do know you have to clear CMOS when you update BIOS, don't you?

*JAW DROPS.* WHOA! I never knew that! No wonder my BIOS update that I installed six months ago never went into effect...heh...well one thing's for sure, I just made my myself look like a complete fool :angry: d'oh!

-Dan The Man
 
*JAW DROPS.* WHOA! I never knew that! No wonder my BIOS update that I installed six months ago never went into effect...heh...well one thing's for sure, I just made my myself look like a complete fool d'oh!
lol it's ok Dan, everyones gotta learn sometime. Usually the BIOS instructions tell you to clear the CMOS afterwards, but ehh who actually reads README's :p
 
Darn Destructions in the read me's always get into my way! LOL
This was one good thread . umm for a laff..? no?
ok ill tell ya..i have also seen where the disc drive was going nuts and the boot sector was a gonner..
 
Make sure your boot sequence is in the correct order. You would need your floppy driver in front of your hard drive in order to boot off of it.
Go into your BIOS and under Advanced Settings or something similar (or the "boot" tab if you have real old Pheonix BIOS) you should see a list of your boot priorities. Just move the Floppy Drive to the first boot priority, then CD-ROM to the next, and your Hard Drive to the 3rd...
 
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