Dell Shitheads No Forum No Help

[dav6]

got a dell dimention 9150 and had to frag and partirion now i have no drivers for SATA and no HD how do I boot to get me to the load XP stage Dell has lost it they have closed the forams and help and only channel is premium phono.
bunch of wankers.
just told friend to buy Dell laptop.
I think i need a boot disc
then i will put in xp could it be i need a partition for drivers for sata

[DABhand]

Im not here btw!

But usually Dell, Compaq etc dont give Windows CD's now, you have to make your own by using their software that makes a disc image of your OS and installed items to DVD.

Of course they should have told you that, but im guessing they didnt or perhaps you forgot to do it.


But seeing as im nice :P

http://support.euro.dell.com/support...&catid=&impid=


Here is how to use it, get the SATA Intel Driver (2nd choice)

Download, and run, when done it will show you the files.

Now format a floppy disc

And copy the files that the download made onto the floppy disc. (not the folder but the files inside the folder)

When running XP installation, press F6 to load other drivers at the start of installation (you will see it ask you to do this for a couple of seconds warning)
Eventually an option will appear and ask for a floppy (if the floppy was in the drive it should show the driver for the SATA controller)

Use this (press enter on it) and it will carry on the install and will show your SATA HDD and ask you what partition you want on it etc.


Ask a friend/s if they have an XP disc from Dell (that asks for a cd-key) when it installs put in the XP key on the side of your machine and it should install.

[BarryB]

How do you F6 if you've no floppy disk in the system, some dells don't come with floppy drives anymore!

Isn't selling you windows and no windows install disc a bit illegal? I know lots of laptop brands that have an ISO image of their recovery disc on the HD, but no Windows disc, very dodgy!

[DABhand]

Its very very common now Barry, MS sell licenses to companies without the media (or a master media disc), since they dont need the batch of CD's they save a fortune.

So they sell machines with the OS (and anything else installed) as a recovery image you have to make yourselves, and some give you a blank DVD-rw to make one.

[Joe Forster/STA]

The idiots: like a re-writeable DVD wasn't much, much more expensive than a factory pressed DVD...

(And, yeah, this "no media" option does exist: we also got M$-SQL 7.0 Select Edition - 20% price, only for educational purposes, no user support - ages ago from M$ Hungary on a manually recorded DVD. )

[BarryB]

Still think this isn't acceptable! When you buy a windows computer you expect to get the OS on a disc, not put the onus on the user to make sure they make a recovery disc.

Cheap fucks and sharp practices!

[Joe Forster/STA]

As far as I remember, I've been told that Dell is the worst you can buy - not only laptops but brand desktop PC's, too - exactly because of quality and support problems. (It's a pity you can't buy parts and build your own laptop yourself, like you can do with a desktop PC...)

[Grumpy]

Many shops in Australia sell PC's without the OS Disc! Ive always said to friends if they really must buy a PC from a store (instead of building it themselves) then they must DEMAND a proper OS disc.

[acal3000]

I don't know it's everyone taste but for me windows recovery disks are crap full of unneeed junk programs that slowndown the machine that even in some cases have adware bundled You can't choose on some models (but not all) what you wanna to install from the disk If you want to install windows and apart the drivers you cant .Also Some Recovery disk programs creators fails to create the disks a lot l(ike some VAIO models) and the let only create one set of disks WTF? it won't work on another brand machine so i don't know why they do this (i know you can copy the disk with nero but is just ridiculus what they do)

The recovery partition is also crap method Several of the HP models comesit locked from viewing/modify you can't enter to se files coz HP thinks that all users are noobs that can accidentallydelete something even when you format and reinstall with a retail windows version instead the recovery partition still continues locked from viewing on the win explorer (fortunately with some Linux LIve CDs you can overridethis crap this and view/modify whatever you want from the partition without the stupid HP message) at begiing I thought was a resident process what do this s I don't know how they can do it but I guess is something on the partition file system this only helps to some virus could hide there and you can't manually remove them coz it's blocked

I just prefer just the retail disk and the drivers apart. OEM brand companies these days are greedy to not include a decent OEMil disk without additional junkware

[Luciel]

Answering a question asked before, "What happens if i don´t have a floppy drive?"

Simple, download a program called nLite, just follow on screen instructions, and when it asks you if you want to add drivers to the install, add the sata driver.

Once all done, boot into the windows install, but don´t press F6!!!!!!!!!!! it will come up empty, just let it go, remember the driver is already integrated ; )

[BarryB]

That's a 'slipstream' install of drivers Luciel, how many people know how to slipstream their XP installation

I use RyanVM's integrator to make a post SP2 slipstream CD, except he's not updated it since June so many hotfixes have to be updated via M$ Update I can add drivers as well but seeing as I have a floppy drive I just F6 and load the floppy with the drivers for my add in raid card. M$ don't allow an F6 to a CD drive, even though most PC's recognize a bootable CD!

[Luciel]

I know but figured that was the easiest way to go for people that didn´t know which is most i guess, about the hotfixes, i know it´s a pain in the ass but if you search for the number of the hotfix on the microsoft website you can actually download them as .exe so you can integrate the missing ones on the slipstream install

In any case, you´ll always have to update to a certain point as new ones come out all the time, which brings me to my next point, not everyone has a floppy :P

I have one now because... on my previous pc i didn´t, funny thing is, one day i needed it, for this very reason, moved to sata hard drives and tried to install windows, funny thing is that the floppy port on the mb didn´t work, could it be cos i had nothing plugged in it for over 2 years?

Other than that the ASUS A7N8XE was an awesome motherboard.

But back on topic, slipstream is the way to go, and an awesome backup tool if you also slipstream your pc´s drivers in it.

So next time you need to format and reinstall windows, it´s install and off you go, no hastle, with nLite you can even slipstream programs which rocks, it´s really saved me a lot of hastle before + it prooves very usefull in my shop : )

[BarryB]

Agreed, slipstreaming can save a lot of hassle if you know what your are doing! I've not used nLite and only used RyanVM's integrator as it seemed easier He's behind on his update packs though due to studying for a degree, hopefully he'll have an update pack ready next week!

Floppy drives are OK but you gotta keep cleaning the dust out of them, I cleaned mine last week and could have filled a cushion with the fluff that was inside