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bootable devices," not that I had the problem, I didn't. The system did run v-e-r-y slow and I attributed that to the out of date BIOS.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!
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!