# Dell Optiplex GX200 won't boot



## David2005 (Sep 30, 2005)

Computer froze in Eudora and would not respond to control alt delete. The machine would not shut off so I unplugged it and tried to restart it. The computer will only go to the Dell startup screen and does not respond to f2 or f8. It has Windows 98. Help would be much appreciated.


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## bonk (Sep 8, 2005)

Got the 98 disk?? and floppy disk??


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## David2005 (Sep 30, 2005)

bonk said:


> Got the 98 disk?? and floppy disk??


I can borrow one. Someone suggested copying a disc from another computer. I have made sure that all the cables are secure. When the dell screen does appear there is a horizonital rectangular meter that begins to fill in and gets about 9 tenths the way filled and then freezes, during that time pushing f2 causes the words "entering setup" to appear on the same screen in the upper right hand corner. Pushing the "reset?" button just below the on-off button on the tower caused the following message to appear. Alert! Previous attempts at booting this system have failed at checkpoint [aux]. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.


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## Anton Wan (Jul 29, 2003)

Sounds like a bad hard drive to me. I would get a boot disk and run a check disk on it. I like to use gwscan myself. If you got a cd with the computer it might have some diagnostics software on it also.

GWSCAN 5.09 - Newest Version - Simply extract all files (there are hidden files in this archive, you'll need those, too) and then reboot to the floppy drive and GWSCAN will autorun. If you're writing 0's to the drive, there is a quick option that works just as well as the full version. Either way, the time should be no longer than about 5 - 10 minutes, depending on the size of the drive 
GWSCAN 5.09 is a diagnostic hard drive utility. This program allows you to verify most hard drives. There are options to check the disk, test the disk, and write zeros to the disk. This GWSCAN version is for IDE hard drives that are larger than 10 gigabytes (GB). If testing or writing zeros to an IDE hard drive that is 10 GB or smaller, GWSCAN version 3.11 is recommended, (found on their restoration CDs only). Note: GWSCAN 5.09 can be run from a floppy disk. Includes quicker run times for applications. Boot to the floppy and GWSCAN will auto run.

GWSCAN Version 5.07: 7513666.exe - Full Instructions. 
Found Here 
Overview

GWSCAN 5.07 is a diagnostic hard drive utility. This program allows you to verify most hard drives. There are options to check the disk, test the disk, and write zeros to the disk. This GWSCAN version is for IDE hard drives that are larger than 10 gigabytes (GB). If you are testing or writing zeros to an IDE hard drive that is 10 GB or smaller, GWSCAN 3.11 is recommended (not found). Note: GWSCAN 5.07 can be run from a floppy disk or you can use GWSCAN that came on the Drivers CD that came with the computer. If the computer does not have a floppy drive, please run GWSCAN from the Drivers CD. Please refer to the Program Use section for instructions on how to run GWSCAN from the Drivers CD. This may be different depending on the version of the Drivers CD used.

Identification

This utility can be used on any IDE or UATA hard drive larger than 10 GB purchased from Gateway, either as part of a computer configuration or through Gateway Add-on sales, with the exception of any hard drive connected to a SCSI controller card.

Installation

1. Insert a blank, formatted floppy disk into the floppy disk drive. Note the following:
a. The floppy disk must be blank to create a bootable floppy disk. (You still may have to copy over the system files afterwards - 9x works best for this job).
b. The floppy disk cannot have been formatted from a computer running Microsoft(r) Windows(r) 2000, Windows NT(r), or Windows XP.
2. Close all open windows. You may want to print this readme.txt file if instructions are needed.
3. If you have not already done so, locate and double-click the 7513666.exe file that you downloaded from the Internet. This file should be located on your desktop. Files are extracted to the floppy disk.
4. Ensure there is no media in the CD\DVD drives and any type of drive that may have removable media such as a ZIP or USB flash drive.
5. Leaving the floppy disk in the drive, from the Start menu, click Shut Down. In the Shut Down Windows dialog box, select Restart the computer, and then click Yes or OK. 
6. The computer restarts to the disk in the floppy disk drive and runs the GWSCAN utility automatically.
Note: If the computer does not start to the floppy disk drive, perform the following steps.
a. Remove the disk from the floppy disk drive.
b. Place the Gateway Drivers CD in the CD/DVD drive, restart the computer, and then when prompted, select Boot from CD-ROM.
c. If prompted for a language, select English.
d. From the Gateway Utilities Main Menu, select Exit to Command Prompt.
e. Insert the disk into the floppy disk drive.
f. At the command prompt, type: A:. Press the ENTER key.
g. At the A:\ prompt, type: DIR. Press ENTER.
h. Determine whether GWSCAN is listed on the screen.
i. If you see GWSCAN listed on the screen, at the prompt, type: GWSCAN. Press ENTER. 
ii. If you do not see GWSCAN listed on the screen, type: B:. Press ENTER. Repeat steps f through i, substituting B: for A:.
7. The GWSCAN utility starts.

Program Use

Running GWSCAN 5.07 from a floppy drive:

1. By default, the Select Drive option is selected. To see a list of all hard drives installed and the current status of each hard drive, press ENTER. 
2. On the Select New Drive screen, all of the installed hard drives are listed. Use the arrow keys to select the desired hard drive, and then press ENTER. The screen displays the status details and verifies which hard drive has been selected. To return to the main menu, press the ESC key.
3. For each hard drive that displays a status of DRIVE NOT TESTED, use the arrow keys to select the hard drive. From the main menu, select the Quick Test option. 
4. The Quick Test screen states how many hard drives the utility detected. If the expected number of hard drives is listed, press any key to continue. The next Quick Test screen states that the test takes about 2 minutes to complete. Press the R key to run the test or press ESC to return to the main menu. 
5. At the end of the test, a message appears.
a. If the drive passed, a "TEST COMPLETED WITHOUT ERRORS" message appears. 
b. If the drive does not pass, an error message appears, stating what type of problem was encountered.
6. Press ESC to return to the main menu.
7. From the main menu, select QUIT to close GWSCAN. 
8. At the prompt stating that the computer needs to be reset to reinitialize the BIOS Setup Utility and hard drives, remove the disk from the floppy disk drive, and then press CTRL+ALT+DELETE, or turn off the computer, and then turn on the computer. Note: GWSCAN 5.07 can also be used to write zeros to IDE hard drives. This option removes all data from the IDE hard drive. This can be useful when there is serious file corruption or if the computer has a virus.


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## David2005 (Sep 30, 2005)

I have downloaded to floppies both the diagnostics that were suggested and one from Dell. I put each of them in the computer and then turned it on but found that the computer did not respond any differently. That is that it is still stuck on the Blue Dell Spash screen. Is this computer and its contents doomed? Any suggetions as to what reasonable options might be?


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## Anton Wan (Jul 29, 2003)

Dave,

Are you sure that the floppies are bootable? It might also be that your computer is setup to boot from the hard drive first and not the diskette drive (floppy), or CD-ROM. You can change this by pressing F2 like you discovered and in there there should be options to change the boot sequence. You want to have diskette drive first in the list.

TK


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## David2005 (Sep 30, 2005)

TK,

I have tried numerous times to get the floopy to boot first but the computer does not respond to the times that I have pushed the F2 or Ctl-Alt-Delete keys.
It does not go beyond the blue splash screen. I can hear the floopy drive churning and the little green light comes on to indicate that there is action on the floppy drive. The "wheels are turning but no one is home".


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## Anton Wan (Jul 29, 2003)

David,

Sorry about that. Depending on how comfortable you are working on computers I would try:

1. Unplug computer from wall. Take the system down to just the CPU video card, and memory (no expansion cards, riser card, IDE/CD ROM drives etc). Power on, and watch the top right hand part of the screen. It should tell you to press F2 to get into setup. Press F2. It should change to Entering setup. If this doesn't happen, you may have a duff keyboard input circuit. Does the progress bar then halt or go to 100%? If the former, there's still a problem with the hardware. If it goes to 100% then blanks, the bios has executed and is now probing the hard drives etc. If so, wait for at least five minutes - the bios at this stage probes for all devices and it can take some time to come back, usually with an F1/F2 prompt. Shutdown and attach hardware one at a time. 

2. If that didn't work remove the motherboard battery for at least 20 min. Also make sure the computer is unplugged from the wall.

3. try resetting the BIOS.

Let me know what messages you might be getting word for word.

TK


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## David2005 (Sep 30, 2005)

Tk,

Not knowing what I was doing I opened up the box and began disconecting drives as you suggested, leaving only the a drive operable. I was not able to run the diagonistic that you sugested but was able to get the start up disc to boot. I then went back and pluged the other drives back in and was able to get a clean boot and open windows. Things look to be working as normal but before I turn the machine off I want to back everything up and try to do some diagnostics. Any suggestions as what to do next would be helpful. Thanks for all your help thus far. David


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## Anton Wan (Jul 29, 2003)

Thats Great to Hear David,

If you want to back up your computer you are going to need some other media to backup to (CD-burner, extra Hard Drive, maybe even a floppy). It all depends on the size of the things you want to backup. I would run a scan disk on the computer since it is still running. How do you do that? I really can't remember, it has been about 4 years since I used Win 98. But I will "bump" it so someone else can answer your question. 

Later and Good Luck,

TK


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