Windows ME simply died

I am hoping for a little advice. I have an ancient Dell Inspiron 8000
with WME on it. Its ok, but tonight after rebooting for Mcaffee
antivirus update, it simply will not boot. I press the start
button...the lights go on...the drive spins for 10-15 seconds...lights
go off and drive stops. That's it. I've tried with the re-install
disc in and it never gets to the point of loading windows. It seems
like a hardware not software issue.

Is she dead?

Any advice?

Thanks,
Chris
Houston

On Aug 30, 8:29 pm, Chris Greeley <csgree...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
> I am hoping for a little advice. I have an ancient Dell Inspiron 8000
> with WME on it. Its ok, but tonight after rebooting for Mcaffee
> antivirus update, it simply will not boot. I press the start
> button...the lights go on...the drive spins for 10-15 seconds...lights
> go off and drive stops. That's it. I've tried with the re-install
> disc in and it never gets to the point of loading windows. It seems
> like a hardware not software issue.
>
> Is she dead?
>
> Any advice?
>
> Thanks,
> Chris
> Houston

For those who stumble upon this post, I think I found a solution...

http://www.dellcommunity.com/support...127330#M157858

and

http://support.dell.com/support/topi...doclang=en&cs=

It seems to be working now that I reset the the cards.

C

On Fri, 31 Aug 2007 01:29:40 -0000, Chris Greeley
<csgreeley@worldnet.att.net> wrote:

>I am hoping for a little advice. I have an ancient Dell Inspiron 8000
>with WME on it.
>Its ok, but tonight after rebooting for Mcaffee
>antivirus update, it simply will not boot. I press the start
>button...the lights go on...the drive spins for 10-15 seconds...lights
>go off and drive stops. That's it. I've tried with the re-install
>disc in and it never gets to the point of loading windows. It seems
>like a hardware not software issue.
>
>Is she dead?


If the battery is in it, try with only AC power adapter.

Try turning it on and leaving it sit in the bios menu... if
it still turns off, or is it completely turning off as
described?

15 seconds is a fair amount of time, it should have been
booting into windows by then, yes? Since you have the
bootable CD, try unplugging the hard drive and if the system
will then boot the CD and stay running.

Sounds like either the PSU or the motherboard is dying. If you want to you
can try to find an older PSU for the older machine and see if replacing
yours fixes it. If not, it's most likely the motherboard, and I would say
time for a new machine.

--
---------------------
DaveW
"Chris Greeley" <csgreeley@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message
news:1188523780.838857.164310@m37g2000prh.googlegr oups.com...
>I am hoping for a little advice. I have an ancient Dell Inspiron 8000
> with WME on it. Its ok, but tonight after rebooting for Mcaffee
> antivirus update, it simply will not boot. I press the start
> button...the lights go on...the drive spins for 10-15 seconds...lights
> go off and drive stops. That's it. I've tried with the re-install
> disc in and it never gets to the point of loading windows. It seems
> like a hardware not software issue.
>
> Is she dead?
>
> Any advice?
>
> Thanks,
> Chris
> Houston
>

Chris Greeley wrote:
> I am hoping for a little advice. I have an ancient Dell Inspiron 8000
> with WME on it. Its ok, but tonight after rebooting for Mcaffee
> antivirus update, it simply will not boot. I press the start
> button...the lights go on...the drive spins for 10-15 seconds...lights
> go off and drive stops. That's it. I've tried with the re-install
> disc in and it never gets to the point of loading windows. It seems
> like a hardware not software issue.
>
> Is she dead?
>
> Any advice?
>
> Thanks,
> Chris
> Houston
>
You might try putting another HDD in it but it sounds too old to invest
anything in. You can try if you happen to have a spare hard drive to
work with but it is not worth investing in any new hardware to fix it.