Dell 32 Bit Diagnostics (Graphical User Interface version) Bootable
http://ftp.us.dell.com/diags/cdd_1284.iso

My mother was finally driven crazy and bought a new tower...somehow. Anywho, I thought I'd take the scrap one and give a test on it. So I'm going through this thread and retrying each thing.

Hey that worked out

Ok, just take your time (ie maybe a day or two)

Yeah, tonight I've got to go out. But tommrow I'mma start running rerunning diagnostics again. If I can get this up I'll have a laptop on my hands as well though..meh. Thanks a ton guys

Is there a more then likely thing that would be causing it?

99% HardDrive fault (must replace to fix)
1% Ram or CPU

I could buy a cheap HD and use that? I've got a 500GB external I use for storing files. Is there a place I could just buy say 80GB, or even 40GB for under 30CAD?

I say no more replies until you have got to the answer
ie "I bought a new HardDrive and loaded Windows, and it all seems ok now!"
Or I ran Memtest, and found faulty Ram, replaced it, repaired Windows, now all is ok"

Note: This will take a few days (some users reply back weeks from now, to say if it worked, on their machine.

Therefore, no more replies. And yes read the thread slowly (it doesn't have to be 80Gig)

Well, I'd hate to post now but I replaced the HD with a cheap 40GB HD, and tried to install. It's repeating the same problem. MemTest again or?

Yes either Memtest for 7 Passes, or the HardDrive data cable
Or, you purchased a faulty HardDrive

<3 TechSpot!

Problem was solved by resetting the CMOS battery! Many thanks to kimsland and other people for your time.

Just to remind you that you have had a number of issues repaired here
The first one being to replace the HardDrive

I'm not sure if you ever got to reset CMOS to defaults (as posted by me somewhere back there) but shorting the CMOS jumper (or on some systems pulling the battery out) can have the same affect, except you will then need to set the time and everything again. Actually looking back over all the posts, I should have said pull the battery, that way it would have saved me the posts on CMOS.

Anyway glad it's solved (again) As you have kind've ended a couple of times in the thread, with all working. If you do get another issue it may be best to start a new thread (with reference to this one)

Done