First off, Hi guys, new to the forum (registering) but have been reading/getting info for a long time. You guys are great, and I hope you can help me out.
To start this off, I'll just say I am running a Dell Inspiron 5100 laptop.
I had recently (last couple months) been using the Windows Vista Beta, and though it was great, I wanted to throw Windows XP back on the laptop. Now, one would think it would be simple (though a minor annoyance), but this has turned into a monumental task.
This laptop has no floppy drive, as well as I have no access to a floppy drive. I could not just run the windows XP setup CD within Windows Vista, as it gives the incompatible version response. I also could not get the windows XP setup cd to run on start up (first tip off something was wrong, but...), so I decided to clear the boot records within VISTA itself using the Vista Boot PRO program.
After doing this, I assumed that (well, more hoping) the CD rom with windows XP setup in it would pick up and auto boot. Wrong, it gives me an NTLDR is missing - Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart.
Now here is the REAL kicker... due to using this laptop, with no floppy drive, and apparently the CD-Rom not the first boot option within BIOS, I can't do much of anything.
And when I say "anything", I mean ANYTHING. "Press F2 to enter BIOS". I cannot enter bios. I've tried every single key combination, multiple different USB keyboards (all keyboards working, including the laptop keyboard), and nothing-- I can NOT get into BIOS. At all. I have never in my life had this happen to me.
I took apart my laptop, cleared the CMOS, and still nothing -- I cannot get into BIOS.
So here I am, NTLDR is missing, no floppy, and I can't even get into BIOS to make sure my CD-Rom is the 1st priority for boot sequence.
Any ideas? I would greatly appreciate them.
Thanks!
To start this off, I'll just say I am running a Dell Inspiron 5100 laptop.
I had recently (last couple months) been using the Windows Vista Beta, and though it was great, I wanted to throw Windows XP back on the laptop. Now, one would think it would be simple (though a minor annoyance), but this has turned into a monumental task.
This laptop has no floppy drive, as well as I have no access to a floppy drive. I could not just run the windows XP setup CD within Windows Vista, as it gives the incompatible version response. I also could not get the windows XP setup cd to run on start up (first tip off something was wrong, but...), so I decided to clear the boot records within VISTA itself using the Vista Boot PRO program.
After doing this, I assumed that (well, more hoping) the CD rom with windows XP setup in it would pick up and auto boot. Wrong, it gives me an NTLDR is missing - Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart.
Now here is the REAL kicker... due to using this laptop, with no floppy drive, and apparently the CD-Rom not the first boot option within BIOS, I can't do much of anything.
And when I say "anything", I mean ANYTHING. "Press F2 to enter BIOS". I cannot enter bios. I've tried every single key combination, multiple different USB keyboards (all keyboards working, including the laptop keyboard), and nothing-- I can NOT get into BIOS. At all. I have never in my life had this happen to me.
I took apart my laptop, cleared the CMOS, and still nothing -- I cannot get into BIOS.
So here I am, NTLDR is missing, no floppy, and I can't even get into BIOS to make sure my CD-Rom is the 1st priority for boot sequence.
Any ideas? I would greatly appreciate them.
Thanks!
