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General discussion

Can't put Windows on my Dell 1520

by pinkcows Jan 26, 2010 3:15AM PST

OK, I purchased the student Windows 7 Upgrade to use on my Dell 1520 (1.5 ghz dual core, 2gb ram, 80gb HD? maybe 160).

Anyway, my plan was to reformat the computer with the disk given to me by Dell and upgrade from Vista (home). I've reformatted my desktop computer many times with a windows XP cd (it is not a Dell computer) so I figured I would be fine.

The installation of Vista was taking a long time, but it finally got to the end of the installation where I think it should have restarted. Instead, I got a black screen which never went away. I left it over night and throughout my working day in case it was just being extremely slow.. Didn't work and of course, it didn't complete so VIsta wouldn't boot up.

I tried the process a few more times until I admitted defeat, and decided to try to reformat and put XP Home on (I wasn't even sure if I could upgrade to WIndows 7 from XP Home but I just wanted my laptop to work..). Now I can't install XP on because when its about to start installing it says that "setup did not find any hard disk drives installed on your computer." I'm assuming this is because the attempted Vista installations wiped everything off my computer and didn't make it to the point of reinstalling stuff like that.

I'm wondering if maybe there's a setting I might need to change in the computer's set up? Otherwise, I have no idea what to do.

Any insight would be appreciated, thanks.

Erica

Discussion is locked

3 Posts
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Not duplicating the XP SATA discussion.
by r. proffitt Forum moderator Jan 26, 2010 3:23AM PST

The XP to a SATA drive discussion is done.

But let's see what I see amiss.

1. SATA drives. XP don't like them. WELL DISCUSSED!
2. XP on 160GB. It can't install to that size. XP SP1 and beyond can so that's a no go. Fix? Blank hard drive please.

Hope that gets you started.
Bob

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Thanks for the quick response..
by pinkcows Jan 26, 2010 3:33AM PST

I am doing some research on SATA/XP topics now.

I would be just as happy (even prefer) getting my Vista on my laptop if my Dell Vista installation CD would work fully.. any suggestions on that? I've been told a lot of times their disks are faulty? Is this really a common problem? If so, is the only remedy to go through Dell?

Erica

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Could be.
by r. proffitt Forum moderator Jan 26, 2010 5:32AM PST

But I would start with a blank hard drive. XP might not like pre-existing partitions especially if they are beyond what it supports.

So how about a tool to delete the partitions? I used GPARTED (see google) to do this just minutes ago.
Bob

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