Can't Install Vista, Win 7 or Win 8 on this Dell?

[BostonAl2012]

Hi All,

It's a Dimension E510 with a P-4 3.2 4MB Ram? It has XP Media Center on it now as the default OS set up on D Drive (100 gigs 45free). C: (48gigs) is ready to be formatted and a new OS installed. Right now I can't even format this drive. I do have a new 750G drive that I can use if needed but it's for a new build.

I've tried installing all three OS's and all hang at the first reboot on the starting windows screen? Then I get stuck with a Duel Boot load up, one to the XP on D, and one to the New Install. If I pick the new install it hangs on the Starting windows black screen every time?

Thanks in advance for any help.

Al

BOIS is the latest put out by Dell for this board, but is the 5 year old A07? I would love to update the BOIS too some how if there was a non-dell version some where~WINK!

 

[BostonAl2012]

P.S. I even installed XP on C: and then tried to upgrade to Vista and the install hung in the same way after the upgrade?

P.P.S. I have already been to DELL and they say there is no BIOS update. Would love to go back and tell them I updated it and more. Did that once the Packard Bell forum, after I upgraded my CPU and Ram, when the Techies on the site said I couldn't~~~It was great!

 

[snotboy]

HELLO ,
this is what i do when i install an o/s.
:1.determine what o/s im going to install
2. for this example it will be xpee pro 32 bit
3. determine which hard dive will be used
4. unplug all other hard drives to avoid confusion
5. if the hard drive to be used is SATA, then plug the hard drive to be used into SATA port zero
6. if the hard drive to be used is IDE, then VERIFY that it is jumpered as drive master on the prioimary IDE port on the motherboard
7.note: if the hard disk is a western digital the drive loves to be by itself and NOT jumpered not jumpered as master on the primary ide port cable.
8. next i make sure that the cd-rom is on the secondary ide port and jumpered as master, or jumpered as slave on the primary port
9. or if its a SATA cd that it is on SATA port 1 or the next open SATA porrt
10. then i make sure all cables are snug
11. power up the dell from hell , gointo the bios and VERIFY that both drives are seen in the bios drive settings
12. save bios settings with f10
13 (sett boot to cd first)
14. inseert OPERATING SYSTEM INSTALL CD INTO THE CD DRIVE
15 CLOSE DRIVE DOOR
16.POWER OFF
17. POWER UP
18 WHEN UNIT SAYS BOOT FROM CD?? YOU HIT THE ANY KEY
19 THEN THE OPERATING SYSTEM WILL LOAD FROM THE CD
20. --- 999.999 PERCENT OF THE TIME , THE PROBLEMAS YOU WILL HAVE ARE A DAMAGED OR LOTION COVERED OR SCRATCJHED O/S INSTALL DISK, OR CRAPPY OLD CD-ROM DRIVE (YOU MENTIONED PACKARD BELL THATS ANCIENT CRAP
21 this procedure has never failed me except for line 20 above being the reason
22. also did you determinew if the system meets the minimum requirements for win 7
23. iif dell says there is no bios upgrade then there is not.
24. did you type in the service tag inrto dell site?
anyways let me know if you get it working
signed......snotboy i am enemyofthe state

 

[amp_driven]

After hundreds of installs, the first most common reason for my failures was a faulty CD/DVD drive. 2nd, was a bad disk. 3rd. was putting a DVD into a CD drive. :beer: Last major headache was also a older Dell. I then learned that with a Hiren's Boot CD in mini xp mode, you can put a uncompressed image file onto a usb and have it copy everything to the hard drive, then when reboot, setup will start as usual. Reminded me of the old win95 and win98 days of using Dos. and copying the CD to a cab. file onto the hard drive and then running setup from there. The Hiren's CD should still work even with a faulty drive, ( it is only spinning up a very small file to run mini xp ) unlike
trying to copy every file from a 2 - 4 gig DVD. Also with this method you will not get a corrupt or file missing message, unless your
original ISO. has a corrupt file. Plus your setup will be much faster because you are bypassing the DVD and running straight from hard drive. One more thing, (sorry for the rambling ) My daughters laptop, another DELL, got corrupt from windows updates, it was in a constant loop of the " PLEASE don't shut off system, while windows updates" Then it would restart over and over, never completing.
I first did a reinstall of the same win7 I had put on it before. Everything went smooth until the final boot and then I got error message.
Bottom line, Dell has a hidden restore partition, and my fresh install was being directed there instead of C: ( same reason for her update problem ) I then backed up her files, ran setup again and this time while choosing the drive to install I deleted ALL partitions, made 3 new partitions and never had anymore problems. I have had many trial and errors with USB installs with my Dell Netbook also. I have it dual booted with XP but I am ALWAYS trying different slimmed down versions of win 7. Anyways, I am new here and just wanted to try and help. BTW. Paragon and Easeus will show if you do have hidden partitions and also which are active too.