Dead End City! Nothing Works!

[japhakayk]

I have a pretty horrible problem that could make someone a hero!

I have a reasonably new (9 mths old) Dell Dimension 2800 which has decided to go a bit mental. I recently installed 1GB of RAM and, later on that same day, one of my games (Doom 3 Demo) crashed/froze. I quit the program and a few minutes later tried to reopen it. Windows informed me that there was a system program missing.

I restarted the PC and it automatically started CheckDisk because one of my volumes is dirty - this then freezes after 30% of Stage 2. I can't find a way of avoiding running CheckDisk or avoiding the freeze at 30% - there are no options available to me.

I have booted the Dell Recovery CD which has the Windows XP software on it (NOT a specific Windows XP CD which would probably come in handy). This CD tries to boot Windows directly (without giving any other options) but gets to a certain point in the load before I get a STOP error, specifically "Unknown Hard Error \systemRoot\system32\ntdll.dll"

So I can't access Windows from the HD and I can't access from the recovery disk. Um... this is where I need a wee bit of help please! Have I zapped my Motherboard with my magical staticky fingers or do I just need to find a way of getting into the registry and reinstalling the ntdll directory file?

Please help!

Cheers, Dave

 

[RealBlackStuff]

Try and take that new memory out (AFTER you discharge yourself of any static electricity) before you do anything drastic. It might not be the correct type (Dell likes CAS=2)

 

[japhakayk]

Try and take that new memory out (AFTER you discharge yourself of any static electricity) before you do anything drastic. It might not be the correct type (Dell likes CAS=2)

Yep, I had already installed RAM previously but have now re-inserted the factory installed chip. Still to no avail....

Looks like an expensive call to Dell is on my horizon! hehe

 

[Liquidlen]

A 9 month old Dell will surely be under warranty.However, if that ram you tried is not on their recommended list , I would be very discreet as to what you tell them.Judge yourself accordingly.