Got an older Dell Inspiron B130 lappy that I am trying to get going.
It has a DVD drive.
Also, I do not have any install disc. I do have an OEM copy of XP and I also have the OEM key on the sticker underneath the lappy that I can use. I figure I will install the drivers from Dell after I get this up.

The old hard drive died and had to be replaced.
I have formatted NTSC on the new HD. It should be ready to go.
I have gone into the bios and I made the CD/DVD, the drive to boot from.

I can not get the laptop to start loading XP on the laptop though.
I start the PC and the drive spins a little..then stops.....After the Dell logo, all I get is a black screen.

I did initialize the new hard drive and format it on another PC.

So what am I missing here?
Does Dell have some special need?

Thanks

2/21/2008 12:22:00 PM

I had a similiar problem with the Inspiron 1100 I've been working on. Luckily the person gave me all the cds that came with the laptop. I had to do a complete reinstall of XP and then install drivers for everything individually by downloading them from Dell's website. As for the problem you're having with starting up XP, is the spinning sound coming from the dvd?

2/21/2008 12:31:43 PM

Go into the BIOS and change the device boot order or hit F12 on the Dell startup screen to boot from the CD drive.

2/21/2008 12:31:51 PM

^
As I said in my earlier post, I did set the CD/DVD rom to be the first in the boot order in the bios.

^^
It is very quiet but the lights on the front indicate to me that the DVD rom does try to load.
It just never does anything beyond that.

2/21/2008 1:57:50 PM

If the laptop is set to boot off cd, then there may be something wrong with the cd. If you pop it in another machine does that CD boot?

2/21/2008 2:12:00 PM

Something is either wrong with the boot sector of that CD or the cdrom is fucked up and not reading it... try it in another computer as ^ said and you'll have your answer. Also, you can download some boot disk's off the intranet that will get you to a dos prompt, from there you can run setup from the windows CD...assuming just the boot sector of the windows cd isn't right and the rest is fine (which I wouldn't count on)

2/21/2008 2:14:16 PM

I will give it a shot..thanks

2/21/2008 2:30:16 PM

is your hard drive partitioned? i tried to install windows on a drive that i had partitioned where the first block was data, the second was where i wanted to install the os. it did the same thing you are describing. i ended up having to delete the partitions, do a quick format, then make new partitions and install windows on the first partition.

this probably doesn't apply to you, but thought i'd throw it out there.

2/21/2008 4:25:25 PM