[DumbNoobie]

Vic, I'm at work so I won't be home till tonight, at which point I won't have internet access. So, if you could write your instructions now, I'll do them when I get home. Thanks again for everything!

[VictoriaiiCe]

First:
How to access Safe Mode:
Reboot your computer while holding down the F8 Key. At the Advanced Options Menu select the option for Safe Mode and press Enter.
How to access Last Known Good Configuration:
Reboot your computer while holding down the F8 Key. At the Advanced Options Menu select Last Known Good Configuration.


If this doesn't work we move on to the next Revcoery console:


The Recovery Console is a set of tools which run from a Command prompt. If your system is formatted as NTFS then these tools can help you manage the partition.

Reboot your computer while holding down F12- This will give you an option to boot from disc: Select "4" to boot from cd and it will ask you to hit F1 and to hit any key to continue cd boot.

Let windows run- Soon a Blue scree will appear:
To run the Recovery Console from CD boot with the Windows XP CD and select "R" at the Welcome Screen.

The screen will switch to black and you will be asked which installation to log on to. If you only have one installation you will press "1". Remember that numlock is off at this time.

Next you'll be prompted to enter your Admin password. By default it is created blank so just press Enter.


At the C:\Windows command prompt type "Help" for a list of commands you can use.



How to Repair the Boot Sector:
If XP won't start it may be due to a damaged boot sector or a missing or corrupt ntldr or ntdetect.com files.
To replace damaged ntldr and ntdetect.com you can copy fresh files from the XP CD using the COPY command. Boot with the XP CD and enter the Recovery Console (as above). At the Command Prompt type the following (where "X" is your CD-Rom drive letter) allowing the files to overwrite the old files
COPY X:\i386\NTLDR C:
COPY X:\i386\NTDETECT.COM C:

To repair a damaged Boot Sector at the command prompt type FIXBOOT and press Enter. Then answer "Y"

[DumbNoobie]

Hi Victoria. I was able to solve the problem after contacting Dell's support, at your suggestion. It turns out ,that for some reason, the computer was trying to start XP from a USB connection and also from a diskette, which my computer does not have. The "Drive 0: Disk Drive Error" meant that the computer was trying to start from the floppy disk, and the black screen with the flashing white cursor was from the computer trying to start from the UBS connection. I still don't know what the "keyboard error" meant. I tried plugging in 2 other keyboards, but still got the message.

The Dell support guy (what ever happened to the "Dude, you got Dell" guy on those commercials?) had me unplug the unnecessary USB connections, and when I restarted the computer, I was able to get into BIOS. There, I fixed the two errors so XP starts from the hard drive.

Thanks again for your help!!!

[VictoriaiiCe]

Great! Good to hear