Computer help!

[P. J. Alling]

Scrap Vista, find a copy of WinXP or better yet win2k.  Live with the 
limitations, experience Zen.

npx at neovenator.com wrote:
> My computer is fracked up again, though this time I've been able to at least 
> recover my data with relative ease.
>
> I really need help: my computer won't boot.
>
> It's a Dell Precision 650 (I think) dual-Xeon workstation, running Windows 
> Vista Ultimate for about a week now.  It's a few years old, but it's more 
> powerful than anything new I've tried lately.  I bought it used from my old 
> boss last December.  It never had problems while I was using it at work for two 
> years, nor after I brought it home, until I started playing games on it 
> (specifically GTA San Andreas and Star Wars Battlefront II).  A little over two 
> weeks ago, my hard drive became inaccessible and I didn't have the original 
> Windows XP disk, so I had to scrap everything and buy a new OS and hard drive.  
> Vista has been a dream until two days ago.
>
> At the point in the boot cycle where the BIOS is done and Windows is supposed 
> to start, nothing happens.  The screen is blank and a cursor smugly blinks away 
> in the upper left corner.  I've tried using the restore options on the Windows 
> Vista disk, but to no avail (it says there's nothing wrong with my install of 
> Vista, and restoring the system to a previous date doesn't fix anything 
> either).  I used an old Norton SystemWorks disk to run their equivalent of Disk 
> Check, where it found some sort of "security descriptors" problem and fixed it, 
> but the system still won't boot.  I'm beginning to think this is a hardware 
> issue unrelated to the hard drive, but I don't know how to find and solve the 
> problem.
>
> Also, since this is a used computer, I don't know how to get access to Dell's 
> BIOS drivers and related software in case there are updates and whatnot.
>
> If anyone has any ideas on things I can try or where I might find drivers and 
> such, please let me know.  I'm getting desperate here: I just want a stable 
> computer!
>
> Oh, please don't throw some "Switch to Mac/Linux/abacus" balloney at me.  Aside 
> from the fact that I can't afford anything new, I actually like Windows and 
> don't think the OS is the issue here.
>
> Thanks,
> John
>
>   


-- 
All dogs have four legs; my cat has four legs. Therefore, my cat is a dog.