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Dell Dimension 4400

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by krd2006

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I have a Dell 4400 in which upon turning on, the Windows XP begins to load, then there is a quick blue screen with some writing (which I cannot read) - then the screen begins that process over again. Will not boot up, load, and no beeps. I have put a new motherboard in but it still does the same thing. Is there a way to see if the processor or the HD is bad? Or do any of you have an idea?
Thanks a bunch!!

3 replies

by bart777

When the machine is booting, just before the windows screen loads press

CTRL-ALT-D

This should take you into Dell's HD test utility. It will examine the disk and if it IS bad will give you an error code. If htat's the case you will need to contact Dell and tell tehm that you ran this test and it returned the error. This saves a ton of troubleshooting time with the 1st level tech on the line.

Best of luck.

by bincarnato

After the Dell Splash screen hit F8. This will be the Windows Startup menu. Choose disable automatic restart on failure. Then let it boot. Then you will be able to see the blue screen error. Note it. If it says "Incaccesible Boot Device", then run the HD diags like above post indicates. If the drive passes the diagnostics, then you need to run check disk to try and repair. To do that you'll need the Windows XP CD you got from Dell with the PC.

Here is link on how to get to the recovery console:

http://www.wikihow.com/Use-Windows-Recovery-Console-from-XP-CD

Follow to step 5.

Once you can type a command in, type this: "chkdsk /r" without the quotes. It will run for a while and then you will get the command prompt again. Type "exit" and your machine will reboot. Hopefully it will boot to desktop.

If message is anything other than what I said, repost the error.

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