jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

A friend is offering me his old Dell desktop. I think it's an XPS 8700 or 8500. It doesn't boot - "cannot find a boot drive" - and he has no Dell disks for it. Since it is out of warranty, he cannot download anything from Dell. As I understand it, I would need some kind of system disk specific to this machine to get it working. There should be a way to get this basically good computer working. Maybe installing a new mother board?

letmedance Loc: Walnut, Ca.

Any Windows installation disk should work just fine. You will need to visit the dell site for the proper drivers. As i recall the XPS series are very good Core 2 machines.

bobmcculloch Loc: NYC, NY

How about trying Ubantu? I'd install it just to clean the system anyway, if you don't like Linux after trying I've seen W10 advertised for about $85, that should work.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

The problem: "cannot find a boot drive" - so he cannot install anything, and Dell doesn't let you have system software out of warranty.

ksmmike

I agree with what has been written already. Most of the earlier computers sold as packages like the old Dell's and Packard Bells, ect, had boot up disks made for each system. It was done so that it would save on tech support. People on the phone would have you wipe everything clean and reinstall from scratch, most times losing all your data. I'm not sure of that exact model, but assuming it can run Win 10, a clean install should work using a Win 10 boot up disk.

However, it could be a failed hard drive and no start up disk will work. The only way to test that without diagnostics would be to try the startup disk from Windows, or put in a different hard drive. If you need a new hard drive, you will likely need the Win 10 setup anyway to format the new drive and install the operating system (Win 10).

Assuming the hard drive in the computer still works, if the Win 10 installation should reformat the hard drive and.. jeesh I cant think of the other term, but it might do something else as well, like reconfiguring the hard drive. However, I doubt you need a new motherboard, from what you posted. Its sounds like a hard drive issue. But Letmedance is correct, you will need drivers for your other devices, like printers, ect. Some will come with the Win 10 install, some wont. I hope that helps some.

Bottom line, you could have 2 issues. You need disks to install an operating system, and you don't really know if the current hard drive works. Sometimes you can open the case and hear a noise (other than the fans) and hear the drive either not spinning at all, or making a grinding sound. Either way, that's not good.

Mike

letmedance Loc: Walnut, Ca.

Your CD drive can be a boot drive. You do not need dell system software to operate the Dell Desktops,any windows, Linux, or even Dos can get you going. If the bios cannot find a boot drive it simply means the hard drive is missing or has failed. I rebuilt a discarded Xps 8500 for my friend using a bootleg win 7 cd and windows activator. Did not feel bad about it because the unit was sold with windows when new.

Leigh-a

When a PC is "turned On", the first thing noted "on the screen" is the System BIOS; which can be accessed by clicking a designated Key.
Once in the BIOS, the 1st. BOOT device can be selected.
Configure it to boot to the CD/DVD Drive; with a OS Disk in the drawer.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/241032/how_to_enter_your_pcs_bios.html

bobmcculloch Loc: NYC, NY

If the machine can boot from CD/DVD Ubantu Live disk will run it, if not you need to change the BIOS setting, in the past I have used Ubantu to override various Windows restrictions put on a HD that kept me from doing a reinstall, might be other ways but a Linux install was the easiest for me, cleaned viruses, partitions etc, Bob.

Leigh-a

This may be a "foolish" question; but are we correct in assuming that this computer has a Hard-drive installed?

When I pass-on an "old" computer, I'll either format, or remove the Hard-drive, rather than "share" my personal data with anyone.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

I'm getting all of this second hand, but the computer has an SSD as the C drive, and he says it has Win10. He put the disk into an external housing, and he could open it and see what's on it. It's obviously not the original drive, so I'm not sure what's going on. I bet it was set up to boot another computer, and he just swapped this one into the other machine. I don't know if it's worth my time to mess with it.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Right. The OS is on the C drive. Data was on a D drive that he removed and put into another machine.

bobmcculloch Loc: NYC, NY

I'd take it and play with it, might get something out of it, education wise.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

I have nothing to lose - till I start spending money on it.

letmedance Loc: Walnut, Ca.

It may be readable as an external drive, but it may not be set up as a system disk, a disk must have the proper information written in the boot sector to be used as a startup disk.

Grab any copy of windows from Xp and later, insert it in your optical drive and start the computer and answer yes when asked if you want to boot from the DVD.

SmittyOne Loc: California

you can pick up an external USB disk drive for about 20 bucks. Then any XP windows disk can be used to boot. Used this trick on a laptop that decided the internal disk drive was kaput. After boot, lo and behold, the computer found that the internal drive worked after all. It was a boot problem not the hard drive. Still using that baby, because it will run BASIC, and none of the newer stuff will. Have a lot of BASIC programs I wrote that I use a lot.