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I have just received an old Dell PC from a friend to repair. I recently took out all the components to clean all the dust inside of the case and on the power supply. I re-fitted the components without any trouble.

When I received the machine I was told that Windows was unable boot and asked if I could try and solve the issue. Upon trying to boot into Windows I get the following error "Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt: "WINDOWSSYSTEM32CONFIGSYSTEM".

I decided my best bet would be to re-install XP using an installation disk. When I insert the disk and set it as boot priority in the Bios I hear the CD loading up and then I get this message "Diskette Drive 0 Seek Failure"

I then inserted a Ubuntu CD which loaded up the installation screen without a hitch.

What am I doing wrong and what can I do to solve it?

asked Mar 03 '11 at 18:13

DazOwen's gravatar image

DazOwen
5.9k77104159


I found this forum. They are saying that it's trying to read the floppy drive. And coincidently they are Dells. Go into the BIOS and make sure the boot order is Optical, HDD, and then floppy. They say this most commonly happens when the motherboard battery is removed or dies, or if a reset is done in the BIOS. Hope this helps.

answered Mar 03 '11 at 18:23

David's gravatar image

David
3.3k112062

There's no floppy drive present on the computer.

(Mar 03 '11 at 18:28) DazOwen DazOwen's gravatar image

Right, that's what the forum was saying but they also said that the machine for some reason is looking for it. You can either turn it off in the BIOS or move it to the end of the boot lineup.

(Mar 03 '11 at 18:30) David David's gravatar image

There's also no floppy entry in the bios either, which is making it even more frustrating.

(Mar 03 '11 at 18:33) DazOwen DazOwen's gravatar image

I'm at a loss then. One other thing to check is the actual drive directory in the BIOS. See if there's a way to turn off the "Drive 0". Keeping in mind though that this could cause a black screen.

(Mar 03 '11 at 18:36) David David's gravatar image

Still no luck. Put XP onto a USB and set it to boot from it, it stayed on the same "Choose what device to boot from" screen and then restarted.

(Mar 03 '11 at 19:07) DazOwen DazOwen's gravatar image

See if there's a way in the BIOS to turn off "boot up floppy seek". Also, from the error screen see hitting F1 will proceed past the error.

(Mar 03 '11 at 19:16) David David's gravatar image
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Asked: Mar 03 '11 at 18:13

Seen: 3,814 times

Last updated: Mar 03 '11 at 19:16