Go to the hdd's manufacturer and download their diagnostic tool, most of these will want this transfered to a floppy drive to boot from. You may need to change the boot order so that the floppy is seen first in the POST.
Disconnect your newer hdd, change the jumper and IDE cable so that the older hdd is the master. This way you won't make any mistakes about which one you're testing.
With a hdd that old and a known bad sector I wouldn't hold my breath on this one.
You might try running Memtest 86, the longer you let it run the more accurate the findings will be.
Do you have another PSU the you can try, or do you have a volt meter to read the different rail? Using a volt meter would be the most accurate means of reading the different rails, bu you could download Everest Home Edition. This will provide you with real time voltages as the BIOS sees them.
Obviously one of the items in the POST is failing for some reason, I would look at the hdd first. Find out what the manufacturer of the hdd, go to their site and you should be able to download their diagnostic tool. Most of these will require that you transfer this to a floppy to boot from.
Another thought would be a loose connection, if you know how to access the motherboard check and see that all the components are properly seated. If you suspect the RAM download Memtest 86 and let it run over night, the longer you run it the better the evaluation.
Also check to be sure that your optical drive is properly connected.
Your Internet Explorer is a browser. I had an incomplete thought about Firefox which is another browser you can use rather than IE. Firefox will hold all of your downloads until you clear it's history, I had thought you could try reinstalling it, but as I said...I didn't think it through, you did not get the entire download.
If this is still hiding out in temp files you may be able to get rid of it by running Ccleaner.
If this doesn't get rid of it the last resort would be to run highjackthis and post this in the Viruses, Spyware, and other nasties forum. Someone there should be able to guide you, this is not an area that I have experience in.
I've watched three recently, The Guardian, Flyboys, and Bandidas. The Guardian and Flyboys are good, Bandidas was better than I had thought it was going to be. What can I say...it had Penelope Cruz and Salma Hayek in it, and I'm a guy. I will say this, Penelope Cruz must used a lot of double sided tape.
There are a couple of ways to go about this. One would be to use a utility like Partition magic to remove it. The second is the easiest, either reformat or wipe the drive with something like Wipe Drive, partition the hdd and reinstall the OS.
When you mentioned Crucial you said that you would need to know what the motherboard is, that is only one to the two ways you can search there. You can also search by entering the make and model of your computer. You can also use a utility like SIW (System Information for Windows) to find out what you have for RAM, the capacity, and the number of expansion slots.
The first the would be to replace the CMOS battery. I would also run memtest 86 over night, it will be worth the potential errors that you mentioned just to know for sure.
Try these and let us know what is happening now. It sound like you have at least a couple of problem at the moment. Ya gotta love dell.
Hi all, this is post #1,000 for me. So I thought I would celebrate with my fellow members here, it's hard to believe that I've been here for two years now.:cheesy:
If you can give me the model or that Acer I will download the user's manual and see what I can find out for you. I won't be able to get back to you till this evening...I have to go earn my keep.
If you aren't familiar with making changes to the registry you need to know that if you make one typo it can cause damage to the registry that may require reinstalling your OS in order to correct it.
I would suggest trying a last good configuration first, failing that I would then try a system restore.
What does the user's manual say about settings in the BIOS? And look and see if there is a jumper on the motherboard that needs to be changed. It the BIOS has an auto setting there may be other setting specific to the two different graphics.
WaltP...you have way too much time on your hands.:lol:
The first thing I did when I saw this in my pm was to google it, I just wanted to see how old this one was. And yes someone somewhere will be gullible enough to fall for this, why else would they persist.
I wonder what made them think that I was a good candidate? I don't use an avatar, but after this I may have to make one of some dupe with a lollypop on their forehead.
Did the DVD work at all after installing the Vista?
I know misery is suppose to love misery, but I suspect telling you that there are a lot of people experiencing the same problem. The only solution that I found was related to the beta 2, for what it's worth you can read about it here.
This is another example of Dell being proprietorial. I'm sure that there is some way to shunt those pins on the motherboard, but I have no ideas how. The only thing that I can suggest is to google around to see if there is an adapter.
If you know what make your hdd is you can go to the manufacturers site and download their diagnostic tool. Most of these require you to transfer this to a floppy to boot from. You may need to set the boot order in your BIOS to see the floppy drive first.
The computer powering up without using the power button makes me wonder about your motherboard. The PSU shouldn't come on unless the motherboard makes the connection between the power supply on wire (green wire in 20/24 pin connector) and ground.
