New hard drive install?

gila · #1 08-08-2007, 09:35 PM

Ok, long story short, my hard drive crashed and I'm trying to install a new one and running into much difficulty.

It is/was a Dell Dimesnion 9100. I replaced the hard drive today with a maxtor 320gb. And, for all practical purposes, that is the extent of my progress. I am not sure where to go from here. I put in the Maxtor disk and told it Windows XP, etc. When I try to boot from the hard drive now it says, NTDLR is missing!

Now, I know I am supposed to boot from the XP cd, but, alas, it did not come with one. It has that Dell restore stuff on it, but how are you supposed to load XP from dell restore when your HD is fried? I also tried to load XP from my Acer laptop's recovery CD to no avail.

So,thanks for any and all help.

kerowo · #2 08-08-2007, 09:43 PM

Don't offer money for help.

If you replaced the HD that had your operating system on it you no longer have an operating system to boot from. If the restore partition was on that drive you are screwed. You need to go buy an operating system for your computer, boot from that and let it format the new HD before installation.

Think of this as a great time to try Ubuntu.

gila · #3 08-08-2007, 09:55 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Don't offer money for help.

Think of this as a great time to try Ubuntu.

[/ QUOTE ]

Ok I edited it, although it would sure be cheaper than what it is going to cost me.

Ubuntu? Is that possible in my situation? What would I do, download that onto a disk from another computer and boot from it? Which leads to another problem, my laptop's cd drive is busted. Could I download to USB drive and boot from there on the 9100?

I have a Dell 1720 w/vista coming (although not for a few weeks). Hopefully it comes with a recover CD. If so, could I use that to boot my Dimension? Is it legal to use that disk for any computer besides the one it comes with?

cbloom · #4 08-08-2007, 10:22 PM

Call Dell.

kerowo · #5 08-08-2007, 11:28 PM

Nope, not legal to use a recovery disk on a computer other than the one it came with, and usually they are locked to the machine they come with anyway. Also, you wouldn't want to put Vista on your old machine because it is old. If the CD drive is dead and the HD is dead the machine is most likely dead.

Some options I can think of.
A new CD drive is cheap enough you could get a spare and either DL an image of Ubuntu on someone elses machine or buy one in a good computer store. You could do the same thing with a copy of XP.
You might be able to find a Linux Users Group in your area and see if one of them can help you out. Some of those guys are friggen McGyvers when it comes to getting installs done.

Meech · #6 08-08-2007, 11:35 PM

"Find" an XP OEM cd that matches your license (Home/Pro/Media Center) and re-install using the same key.

Or buy one.

Dell will charge you $$ for a real CD these days. That extra .10/computer adds up ya know.

gila · #7 08-08-2007, 11:55 PM

[ QUOTE ]
If the CD drive is dead and the HD is dead the machine is most likely dead.

[/ QUOTE ]

Thanks for the help. Actually, the CD burner in my acer laptop is what is dead, and the harddrive in my dell desktop. The Dell is really not that old (2 yrs). Well, I found a form to fill out at Dell to get recovery CD's for my system. I guess I will see how that works. It does not appear they charge for these. hmm

Still a little worried about the NTDLR is missing message that comes up. Hopefully booting from the new cd will alleviate this problem.