[justin.b.]

Hi,

I have a dell Dimension 4600, which has given me so many problems throughout the years. When we got it, the thing ran great. This was a few years ago... A year or two ago the thing got a NASTY Virus, and ever since then it hasn't worked because of hardware and software problems. I pretty much decided to give up at that point and the thing has been sitting around collecting dust.

My dad thought it was the memory, and so today I carted the computer up into my room, set it up and put in a new memory card. It didn't help, My computer goes in circles when trying to boot up, until the blue screen pops up.

It cannot boot from the hard drive, and I get the message

"press F1 to retry boot, F2 for setup utility"

F2 takes me to the utility, but as far as I know I don't want to change anything here at the moment.

if I press F1 it pops up the same message.

So I tried Booting from the CD and Reinstalling from the CD. Neither worked and both of these result in the Blue screen of death. For the install, the blue screen would come up at the third bullet point which I believe is "preparing installation."

***STOP: 0x0000000A (0xCDCDCDCD, 0x00000002, 0x00000001, 0x807d600f)

WhenI continue the current upgrade I get "IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL"
the Tech info is:
***STOP: 0x0000000A (0x0a130013, 0x00000002, 0x00000000, 0x807d5ff9)

I am getting a few other blue screens but I don't know what the say, But as far as I know, everything I have tried has lead to some form of Blue Death screen. Any Ideas on how I can get this puppy to work?

I also tried to boot from my Laptops CD but it didn't work so its not the CD that is the problem.

[ntlgnce]

Thats a memory error. Saying that you have bad ram. Perhaps its the wrong speed, there are 100Mhz and 133 Mhz. The old ram is probably correct. Try pressing F8 when you boot and see if you can boot in safe mode, as if its a software issue, it will let you boot to the desktop in safemode.

If you can boot in safe mode, go to add and remove programs and uninstall the last thing you installed!! ?? may be a problem since its been so long.. Look for stuff thats not needed and start uninstalling.

The error your getting is a memory is bad at that location. If its not the correct RAM, then the computer gives you that error as soon as it tries to load things into ram.

[justin.b.]

I tried pressing F8 with both sets of memory, and both times I got

"press F1 to retry boot, F2 for setup utility."

Could I be putting the RAM in the wrong spots perhaps? when I opened the Computer up there were 4 possible spots to put the RAM in, and the existing RAM was in slots 1 and 3 (white), and the other two slots were black. so I put the ram in the White where the old stuff was.

[ntlgnce]

The good news is since you can make it into the bios, the computer is not fried.

If you look closely at the slots for the Ram it should say Dim1 Dim2 Dim3 Dim4 or something similar. You want it in 1 and 2. If you have the 2.8 GHz Processor check to make sure you have the PC3200 DDR Memory, Make sure you do not have a floppy in the zip drive.

If its the right kind of ram, Check to see that all your cards are plugged in, Video, sound, and any other conenctors that you see. Push them all in snug. The processor did it have a heatsinc, is it still on there? are all the fans plugged in?

Have you ever messed with the hard drive? Unplugged it, or the CD drive? Perhaps you plugged it into the wrong spot on the cable. If you may have done this or someone may have done this, its as simple as putting them back to where they were originally.
Try to take out the hard drive from the case, (you only need to be able to whack it a little). A small jolt to one of the long sides, (sometimes on older drives they stick).

If all the information on the hard drive is not needed try to reformat, Delete and reformat using NTFS. (Last resort, unless the info on the HD is truely worthless). I am almost positive that its the ram thats causeing problems. From what it sounds like you have 4 sticks of ram, and 4 slots, Try one of the original sticks of ram in slot 1, (you want to see if it will take a reformat or boot from CD), as I think your past the computer just booting normally. If the first stick does not work, then try the next and the next, one at a time untill you find one that works, or gives you a different error, You will need to boot from cd everytime.

One last thing, if you had something like SpyBot registry protection, it may not allow you to boot from CD as it has to overwrite the registry, and spybot may not let it ((not sure if this is possible or even close to being a answer, but it seems perhaps logical)). If thats a correct statement then only a reformat would do the trick.

If the HD has information on it that you need, you can always pull it out of the computer, switch the jumper on the back to slave, plug it into a second desktop, and pull off what ever you need, then reformat.

[piyush]

Boot the system from windows XP CD,open the recovery console and run the fixmbr command.
Otherwise,you need to bootable antivirus CD.If it works you should restore the mbr using the fixmbr command in recovery console and reboot the system.
For the stop message, try this-
You should do a compatibility check of the system by using the windows XP upgrade advisor.This can also be occured if there is antivirus software running on the system you are try to upgrade .Be sure to shut down any instances of these types of software before upgrading the sysytem

[justin.b.]

Ok, I tried all of the stuff in both posts, except the reformatting, and the placing of the hard drive in another computer. The RAM all did the same thing, and I am unable to boot from the CD. It also says that I am missing the Windows System 32 files if I try to continue without installing windows from the CD. If I install from the CD, I get the Blue screen. I checked all of the connections, and the all seem fine. I dont have any anti Virus software to boot from, because I dont have the CD's, the antivirus was downloaded. I may have had spybot, its really hard to remember at this point.

I think I need to do the reformat, but I am not exactly sure how to do it, since I cant even get the computer "going" so to speak before it goes blue. I have most of the stuff on an external hard drive, like music and pictures, I dont care about games, or school assignments, I can just start those over or forget about them.

The old memory is 512 MB infineon, and the new stuff is 2 GB Kingston. They are both PC3200, and the new kingston is 400 mHz, not sure what the infineon is.

So at this point I'm thinking of reformatting the hard drive.

[Prizzbone]

Just reformat the sucker, it only takes about an hour till your up and running again. I think it sounds like a RAM issue originally also, but now it just sounds like you need a fresh install. If you get errors during the install, run memtest and check your RAM. Then try installing again.

[justin.b.]

How can I reformat it without logging on though? Where do I go in my never ending loop of blue screens to get to such an option?

[Prizzbone]

You have to reformat your hard drive. You will lose absolutely everything that is not backed up on another HD. Insert your windows disc and reboot your comp, it should ask if you want to boot from the CD, (if not, reboot and enter your BIOS screen, (it will display on your screen what button to push to enter it) then go to your BOOT priorities and put boot from CD 1st) you should then see a blue screen and at the bottom you should see items being loaded into memory.
It will ask some questions, jsut make sure that you choose to install windows, not recover it. You will want to delete all partitions, and then format the partitioin NTFS, not quick NTFS (will take a while depending on your HD). This is where your HD is wiped clean, just like a new HD. It will start loading the setup files and then it will reboot. It should start installing windows at this time, should take about 30 minutes from there. Follow the instructions and your comp will be wiped clean, including any traces of any virus. CLEAN.
Some things before you start, make sure you have access to drivers, you'll need to reinstall all of these after you reformat, pretty easy. You just have to install teh chipset and mobo drivers then you can get the rest off the web.
I am not sure what kind of comp you have, or what kind of disc you have with windows. Some comps, like compaq, don't give you an actual windows disc, you have to call them and request one. Some have stupid automatic recovery programs, let me know if you have one of those.
Don't be stressed, it's way easier than you think. If you get errors installing, let me know, we'll deal with them as you get them.


OOPS, jsut saw you have a dell, you should have an actual copy of windows, forget what I said about that recovery stuff.

[justin.b.]

you should then see a blue screen and at the bottom you should see items being loaded into memory.

I am getting the blue screen of death at this point

Its on the blue screen with the bullets on the left side, and theres 5 of the bullets. That screen is up for a second or two before it goes to the blue screen of death, if that makes sense, so it isn't physically letting me get to the important parts of the loading process that will let me reformat.

the error message is

IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL

*blah blah blah*

0X0000000A (0X0A130013, 0X00000002, 0X00000000, 0X807D5FF9)

[ntlgnce]

MAKE SURE YOU GET YOUR WINDOWS CD CODE before you reformat.... IF its not already on the side of the case.. (Not sure if you can get it off, when you plug it into a second computer, I am sure there is a way though)..

[ntlgnce]

Ok Have you ever unplugged your hard drive in any way shape or form? If so it may be a jumper issue, or that its not plugged in all the way.. (best to check anyway)..

Also You said that you can boot to the bios, Go in that and check through the options and see if there is any security option thats locking it from being reformatted!..

How far exactly does it make it? do you see the option where it askes you if you want to restore? If so select no, Then it shows you the partitions, Highlight them one by one and Delete, and press L, (it says what you need to do to confirm). Then you select NTFS, Not the quick, and it does its thing and reboots, then there are three bullets on the left, and it makes it to the third one?

If your only seeing the things load at the bottom then getting the blue screen Its definately the ram.. Its not plugged in all the way or its the wrong Mhz of ram. Try with just the old sticks, (if that dont work try just one old stick, and if that one dont work try the other old stick make sure its in slot one).

Some computers had to have the exact same ram in slot one as slot 2. and they both had to be filled, does anyone know if this is one of those computers?

[Prizzbone]

I agree, if your getting BSOD'd before you even get to the partitions, it's your RAM. Have you run memtest?
Also, when you say blue screen, with the bullet points, is it blue like the BSOD or blue like windows background?

[justin.b.]

Ok, I can get to this screen.

It goes to the third bullet point for a second or two, and then goes to the BSOD.

I am trying this with the old ram, and I have tried it with the new ram as well. Nothing seems to be working. I know I am putting it in slot 1 because the slots are labeled.

[Prizzbone]

OK, your into the actual install, way past the formatting, the formatting stage looks more like DOS, it's really old looking, so now I wonder if you ever formatted. Also, have you tried Memtest?