Dell Inspiron 7000 laptop and XP...

[Kage]

Hey,
I have a mate with a Dell Inspiron 7000 laptop.

Now, hes tried to install Windows XP on it, but gets this:

"Installing Devices".
It just freezes at that bit, and doens't find them.

Now, I searched on Google and found nothing worth noting.

I did though find a site that said to press F5 when its hunting for devices, and to force a type of HAL (Hardware Abstraction Layer) onto it if it can't find one automatically, but that didn't work.

Does anyone have any other tips that may help him?

It has nothing extra, so its just a standard 7000 series. I'm at a loss.

Thanks in advance

 

[joxley1990]

Is it the XP disc that came with the laptop? The DELL ones?

 

[Computer Head]

Is it the XP disc that came with the laptop? The DELL ones?

uck, I hate the Dell XP Recovery CDs. If it is, try using an OEM Xp Disc.

 

[Kage]

No, its a standard XP disc I believe. He wants a clean install, as I think he formatted the drive.

 

[joxley1990]

Has he got the DELL discs? Because, back when I had my Dimension 3000, I had to use the DELL CD, I could not use the OEM CD..sounds about the same thing, except I got an error message..

 

[joxley1990]

BTW - If you need a DELL XP disc, Im sure I have one somewhere I can pop in the post..

The disc he's using isant scratched, or damaged at all is it?

 

[Kage]

I don't think its scratched, no, and yeah, when he asks to progress, it does ask for a disc, but he says he doesn't have one. So that could be the answer.

 

[joxley1990]

That must be it - are you in the UK kage?

 

[Kage]

Yeah, I'm in the UK.

Thanks for the offer Joxley, but I contacted him today, and he basically said that he has loads of Dell discs, but he needs a floppy disc drive to update bios, but he doesn't have one on the lappy, because he thinks thats what it is.

Thanks for the offer again That was very nice of you.

 

[Kage]

Sorry about double post, but I think its worth it, as to say he came up with a soloution, and it worked.

He found out he had to update the bios to version A15, and it installed with no worries. I don't know how he got that onto CD to boot it, but he did.