dell optiplex 320 turn off achi??

[lan101]

I gotta dell optiplex 320 that needs formatted for windows xp home edition

It freezes up after the initial set up for xp when it goes to detect the HD.

I turned off achi before on a few others. This one does not have that option. I attempted to update the bios on a bootable cd to no avail.

I booted right up with puppy linux off the cd and that worked fine.

Any suggestions to try with this to get windows xp on here??

Thanks,

Landon

 

[dgiles79]

Have you tested or switched out the hard drive?

 

[Jimmy G]

dell optiplex 320

Landon,hey,
Have you run hard drive and memory diagnostics. Is the hard drive a Western Digital WD800AAJS-75M0A0 ,There is a Recommended firmware update for these two models;
This firmware will update the following models to 02.03E02
WD1600AAJS-75M0A0 DP/N U717D
WD800AAJS-75M0A0 DP/N M269M

You can run Dell 32 Bit Diagnostics A1322A1 or use the diagnostics on the Utility partition. otherwise run the drive manufacturer's drive diagnostics.If the drive is a Toshiba ,you can use Hitachi Drive fitness test diagnostics as it will not care who manufactured the drive.
Use memtest86+ to test the memory.
Backup the customer's data first before run diagnostics,unless they don't need a data backup.
for a quick determination,just swap in a known good hdd and run a WIn XP install on it.
Jimmy G

 

[lan101]

I apologize. It is a samsung hard drive. The diagnostic came out out ok from the built in dell diagnostic. I have not tried another drive yet, but I can when I get back later on. Thank you for the suggestions.

 

[lan101]

UPDATE:

I put in a western digital 500gb sata and the windows xp setup took right off.

I still believe the 80gb samsung is good though. I'm thinking it might just be the firmware. I tried the nlite solution but the dell driver for the 320 does not work...its in an .exe format. The nlite wants the .inf. Unless I'm missing something obvious lol.

 

[Jimmy G]

yes

The Samsung exe file (Firmware update) is a dell compressed package.Double click it to auto-unzip .The files will be extracted to C:\dell\drivers\R220296\

I'd leave the 500 GB hdd installed if the 80GB Samsung is 3 0r 4 years old. By the way ,I'd dl and run Samsung drive diagnostics ' ES Tool (The Drive Diagnostic Utility) ' I believe you'll find version 3.00g on the UBCD 5.0

Jimmy G

 

[lan101]

Thanks Jimmy appreciate it.

I talked with the customer about the situation and they said it was quite slow at times and etc. So we decided we are just gonna stick with the 500gb hard drive. The machine is probably the most responsive I've ever seen with only 512MB ram in it with xp sp3 on it. She declined on a memory upgrade at this time, but like I said it's quite quick for just basic tasks which is all she does anyway.

Thanks again,

Landon