[resistanceisfutile20]

Hello.

Disclaimer: Ok, first off I would like to say that I am not computer smart at all. Haha. I know some things, like the basics, but not anything real technical. And I ask a lot of questions. So bare with me. But I learn fast so hopefully someone can help me.

Now, I just got this laptop recently from a customer of mine, (I clean homes) and she said it works fine and it is about 8 or 9 years old. Its a Dell Inspiron 7000. I bought the things for it to have wireless internet and whatnot. Everything was fine, well it was running kinda slow so I wanted to update it from Windows 98 to XP. So I put the disk in and started installing and everything was running smoothly and then it said to choose a partition(sp?) and I did..hopefully the right one. And then it went on to copy the files. Then is said that one of the files could not be copyed and I could try again or skip it. Well I tried several times and then decided to skip it. So everything was fine again and then it got to "installing devices" and when the countdown is at 34 minutes left, the screen goes blank and there isnt any activity, (the light isnt blinking). So I tried several times and it happens everytime.

Ive tried, from what others have told me, to put it in safe mode or whatever and it still goes back to the intallation screen, with or without disk. I cant get past that. Someone told me to restore it back to factory settings, but I think I have to be where my desktop screen is to do that and I cant even get to that point. So now I have no access to the stuff in it at all because I cant get pass the installation mode. So I stopped messing with it. I dont know if maybe I did something wrong (it isnt surprising) or maybe its something simple. Please help, it would be very appreciated. Thanks.

Oh and be gentle with your answers. Haha. Especially if I did something REALLY stupid.

J

[Mike0001]

Originally Posted by resistanceisfutile20

Hello.

Disclaimer: Ok, first off I would like to say that I am not computer smart at all. Haha. I know some things, like the basics, but not anything real technical. And I ask a lot of questions. So bare with me. But I learn fast so hopefully someone can help me.

Now, I just got this laptop recently from a customer of mine, (I clean homes) and she said it works fine and it is about 8 or 9 years old. Its a Dell Inspiron 7000. I bought the things for it to have wireless internet and whatnot. Everything was fine, well it was running kinda slow so I wanted to update it from Windows 98 to XP. So I put the disk in and started installing and everything was running smoothly and then it said to choose a partition(sp?) and I did..hopefully the right one. And then it went on to copy the files. Then is said that one of the files could not be copyed and I could try again or skip it. Well I tried several times and then decided to skip it. So everything was fine again and then it got to "installing devices" and when the countdown is at 34 minutes left, the screen goes blank and there isnt any activity, (the light isnt blinking). So I tried several times and it happens everytime.

Ive tried, from what others have told me, to put it in safe mode or whatever and it still goes back to the intallation screen, with or without disk. I cant get past that. Someone told me to restore it back to factory settings, but I think I have to be where my desktop screen is to do that and I cant even get to that point. So now I have no access to the stuff in it at all because I cant get pass the installation mode. So I stopped messing with it. I dont know if maybe I did something wrong (it isnt surprising) or maybe its something simple. Please help, it would be very appreciated. Thanks.

Oh and be gentle with your answers. Haha. Especially if I did something REALLY stupid.

J

If there is nothing on the disk you want to keep, try deleting the existing partition first and then create a new ntfs partition, do a slow format, and then proceed.

You will need to force the laptop to boot from the CD again to do that.

[resistanceisfutile20]

Im sorry, but how do you do all of that?

Should I just take it to someone? I was trying to avoid doing that.

[resistanceisfutile20]

Im sorry, but how do you do all of that?

Should I just take it to someone? I was trying to avoid doing that.

[philthomas]

To be honest, you will be better off going bacl to Windows 98se

From what I can make out, the Dell Inspiron 7000 was a Pentium II Laptop with 64mb RAM and an 8gb Hard Drive, which means it isn't really powerful enought to run XP.
You may get XP running, but it will run as slow as a slug, without extra RAM, so unless you want to spend money on it (not worth it IMO), go back to W98se

[resistanceisfutile20]

Thank you for all of your input. I think i will go back to windows 98se. : )