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Problems with loading Windows XP
I'm trying to help a friend with a Dell laptop and windows XP.
Upon startup it runs scandisk which takes an excruciatingly long amount of time. It finds a couple bad clusters that it says it repairs and like 600 kb in lost clusters that will be saved as files. When it finishes it reports ~300kb in bad sectors. Then it flashes some screen and the only thing I can catch is RAM dump... (not to familiar with XP, so don't know if this is normal or a screen I need to see).
After scandisk it goes to the load options screen. Choosing either Last Known Good Config or Windows Normally will cause it to load briefly and then go back to scandisk. Choosing Safe Mode shows the blue driver loading screen and then it takes another crap load of time, but then it goes directly into that option screen again. Safe Mode with Command Prompt took so long that I gave up and turned off the computer.
My guess is that those bad sectors have some necessary files, but as I'm not to familiar with XP I don't know if there is another way around the problem. She doesn't have the XP CD, so I couldn't try booting with that. I told her to give Dell a call, or hopefully I can find an answer.
Thanks in advance for any help,
Thien
Upon startup it runs scandisk which takes an excruciatingly long amount of time. It finds a couple bad clusters that it says it repairs and like 600 kb in lost clusters that will be saved as files. When it finishes it reports ~300kb in bad sectors. Then it flashes some screen and the only thing I can catch is RAM dump... (not to familiar with XP, so don't know if this is normal or a screen I need to see).
After scandisk it goes to the load options screen. Choosing either Last Known Good Config or Windows Normally will cause it to load briefly and then go back to scandisk. Choosing Safe Mode shows the blue driver loading screen and then it takes another crap load of time, but then it goes directly into that option screen again. Safe Mode with Command Prompt took so long that I gave up and turned off the computer.
My guess is that those bad sectors have some necessary files, but as I'm not to familiar with XP I don't know if there is another way around the problem. She doesn't have the XP CD, so I couldn't try booting with that. I told her to give Dell a call, or hopefully I can find an answer.
Thanks in advance for any help,
Thien
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