Okee, sorry for my absence.

I kind of understand what you say about Dell, I use them at school and when we first got them just installing the OS on brand new machines was an adventure in and of itself on a good chunk of them ( I was lucky and got a working machine lol).

Our apologies for not getting this one resolved, I'm still baffled to tell the truth. Hopefully the arrangement you have works well for you, and if you decide you want to take another crack at it I'm down with that.

Thnaks Ron, I am still thinking about what is wrong with the dell, so if any one does have any thoughts. For the life of me I cant figure out how XP works and 98 does not, I thought of the proccessor but then I am thinking to my self no duh the 98 works.

But It is a dell so I dont really expect to figure it out, and I will never ever buy another one nor recommend one. I love my IBM's but I dont think I would have went out and bought an IBM (they are expensive). I received my laptop and my desktop through my school as a graduation incentive(sp).

So any thoughts would be wonderful, but dont strain your brains.

I am a customer advocate here at Dell headquarters in Texas. I just found this thread and wanted to see if there was anything I could do to help out. I am going to answer some of the questions asked previously, that may have already been answered, from a Dell point of view just to make sure I don't overlook anything that you still need help on. If you have questions on anything I have posted just let me know.

I did a quick check in case I had forgotten one, but I can not find any information about a Dell Dimension 2100 system. I assume this is a typo, but unfortunately your posts don't give me enough information to figure out which model you are actually referring to. With the model number I should be able to give you slightly better information that what I am posting now.

According to the Microsoft Knowledge Base (How to troubleshoot "Stop 0x0000007B" errors in Windows XP) the 0x0000007b stop error means that something is preventing the normal boot process from working correctly. There are a few different things that could be causing it, and the specific cause will determine which is the best method for fixing things.

Since you got the error when booting from the hard drive, that tells me that either the master boot record (basically, information on the hard drive that lists what data is where) has a problem, or data or files needed by Windows XP are missing or corrupted.

If you haven't already done so, I would recommend setting the boot order in the BIOS (aka the system setup, accessed by pressing F2 at the Dell splash screen just after powering on) to be: 1) Floppy drive, 2) CD/DVD/Optical drive, 3) Internal Hard Drive (might read Internal HDD). This way, you boot straight to the hard drive unless there is a boot floppy or CD in the system. By the way, Dell systems are always shipped with all drives set to cable select. This is done to make installation or replacement of drives by customers easier.

The problems you had booting the computer with the Windows 98 hard drive is because Windows 98 did not understand what hardware it was trying to use, and basically had a panic attack. You might be able to boot Windows 98 into Safe Mode, in which case you could install the required drivers to let Windows 98 talk to the hardware on your computer. The only problem with this is that I don't know whether there even are Windows 98 drivers for your system (if it shipped with Windows XP installed, the chances are very small).

The later posts indicate that Windows XP somehow got corrupted, so it is entirely possible that the reinstall you ended up doing was the easiest method of getting the system working again. The reason it may have worked in the IBM but not the Dell is that the corrupted files were not needed on the IBM, but were required for the Dell to start correctly.

If you can give me the model I can send you a list of the latest XP drivers (and the order they should be installed in), and possibly some other options for fixing the problem. If I had the service tag (or a case or reference number from a previous service call) I can check the history of the system to see if that gives us any other options.

Hopefully this information helps you out.


Larry
Dell Customer Advocate

Thanks Larry & welcome to PC Help Forum, I'm sure your help will be of use here.

Thanks Larry here I go. First of all the model is Dimension 2100 its an older model(2001) and no longer in your system, so i was told by Dell Canada. Secondly my service tag is G9VJ611, and my ESC is 35425675333. It is under Nicole Smith Regina, Sask. It had Win XP Home, it is know runnign Win 98 fine, but refused Xp all together, wont if boot from disc. I have done everything you asked aboove. I have put the XP in the IMB and my husband is using it in there, and the Dell has the 98 in it as my lab machine right now. But would really like to know what is up with it, and why it wont accept XP, as it works fine with 98. I did reformat the XP HDD as IE was corrupted, but it after reformat it still woudl nto run in the Dell, i cant even get it to go to the dell screen so i can go itno teh BIOS. I amstumped hence why I am here, I shoudl be able to diagnose it and I cant so i am frustrated, not a very good Tech specialist, I guess.

thank you in advance for any help. Please let me know if you need anything else. And you will see all teh logs on my PC onlien as it has had any things doen to it it had a new HDD, MB and chip replaced a year or so ago, and an new CDROM 3 years ago. good luck.
Nicole Smith

Hi Larry thanks for the helpful post.

@ Ribs:
I've actually had a bit of an idea,

Does your CMOS have any sort of virus protection?

If so, try disabling it before trying to install XP. This seems like a pretty silly thing but I've seen things like that work on occaision.

Please don't get too down on yourself, we haven't managed to solve the problem yet either. Obviously not as simple as it seems. Though it might be simpler and those can be the toughest to diagnose. I'm pretty sure that once we get to the bottom of this we'll all have to smack ourselves in the foreheads at least once. Then again maybe not.