old Dell OptiPlex GX110 doesn't boot from HDD

Hello everyone. I have an old Dell OptiPlex GX110, and being an old hardware geek, I decided to see how well Windows 7 would run on it, since I've seen older comps run it just fine. I did a low level format on the drive, dropped in the Windows 7 disk, and it copied all of the files without an issue. Then when I reboot it, all I see is the blinking cursor. The machine seems to be noticing that there is an OS on the drive, because if I swap the drive for one which has no OS, it will display "No Operating System Installed."

I've tried clearing the CMOS, NVRAM, changing hard drive cables, swapping RAM sticks, changing hard disks, removing every card that wasn't 100% needed, and even re-seating the CPU and heatsink. The BIOS detects the HDD correctly, and it is recognised.

I know that the problem isn't the horrible specs, because I hat the same problem when I reinstalled the original OS.

Anyone have any ideas what the problem might be?

The specs:
Intel Pentium III 666MHz
512MB RAM
Dell OptiPlex GX110 Stock mobo
nVidia GeForce 2 MX 16MB
Quantum Fireball 1ct IDE HDD, 30GB

Those older specs, a 30GB hard drive should do, because I dual booted Windows 7 & XP Pro on a 40GB one. It was a Latitude C640. But I had a Pentium 4 processor and 1GB RAM. I know of one on this forum that installed 7 on 512MB RAM. That Pentium III processor and the stock mobo would concern me. Even the install that I just spoke of, there were problems. Of course no Aero, but it wouldn't "sleep", the performance was sluggish, I had to revert to restore point many times. That laptop has since deceased, it was eight years old. I have 7 on a later model laptop (a Latitude D610), and it does well. That one has a Pentium M processor, 213 GHz, 2GB RAM. All is well except no Aero. I can live with that. Up until recently, I liked older computers, too. But new ones (especially laptops) are cheap now. I'm not giving $200 to $300 to a eBay refurbisher, when I can throw in another $100 and buy new. I'm sure that you can rebuild your computer to make it as good as many store bought ones, as long as you have the cash to do so. It's simply a matter of "do you really want to", and if you enjoy doing it. That Pentium III, I see as a problem. The RAM should be 1GB minimum, 2GB would be better. I don't know anything about MOBO's or video cards, except that video card (stock) is severely outdated. There are many threads here on that topic. If you want Windows 7 on this computer, and are financially committed, you can do it. But with the parts that needs upgrading, it's a matter of "do I want to?"

Thanks Catilley, and if you want Aero by the way, click on the start button and type in the search bar "Aero". One of the options will be something like "Aero Debugger," sorry for the lack of the specific name there. Anyway, it will search for, and attempt to solve any errors with Aero that you might have. I found this when Aero wasn't working on one of my cards, which had sufficient video RAM. That laptop sounds pretty new, it ought to be able to handle Aero.

Anyway, back on topic. I wanted to put 7 on that Dell as kind of my own little "how low can you run it" test, and I've seen 7 running on a Pentium 2 with 128MB RAM. The required specs from MS aren't too much of a worry.

WindowsGeek, you're right about the so-called "minimum specs" that you must have to run Windows 7 on. I ran the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor, and it was reported to me that my laptop would be unlikely to run it. But it also advised me to contact my OEM for advice. I got an email from Microsoft during the summer, along with millions of others, offering me up to 25 or so Windows 7 Home Premium upgrades for only $49. Had I only knew that Windows 7 would run fine on my laptop, I would have bought it. When I finally did install 7 on it, all but one driver (audio) was installed. I installed that from my driver disc. Inside of 30 minutes, Windows 7 was rolling fine on it. But what you mentioned, seeing 7 running on a Pentium 2 with 128MB RAM, the thought of it is incredible, let alone being there to see it. 7 is very light on resources, compared to it's ancestors. Win 2K would eat all of the RAM that you feed it. Even on 2GB RAM, startup is slow, compared to XP and 7 (I never had Vista). Kind of the way you like older computers, I hobby with older OS's on VM's. Some (Sun's Virtual Box) will actually run Windows 3.1. I very much would like to try this system, but the only ones I can find are on floppies. No CD installs. But I did the same as you with 7 on my ancient laptop, it was functional, but far from dependable. Did you actually run this install of 7 on a Pentium 2 yourself to feel what it was like? Man, I would have loved to see this. It proves that 7 is light on resources. I don't know if 2K or XP would run on it. That is awesome.

Well, that same Penty II (333MHz) currently has Win2K. It's not really a resource hog, though when I had XP on it, the CPU spent most of its time crunching for the OS. The RAM was about half full. Under 2K, the RAM isn't as full, and the CPU didn't have to work so much. Running 7 on that was... incredibly... slow It scored a 1.0 for everything in the system profiler, RAM was full, CPU ran Minesweeper just fine. I was surprised that Win7 actually has the driver for that chip anyway. Though, I don't think it could take Vista, because that was even more of a resource hog than 7...

7 is going to score very low on that system, but you want to know how I feel about those "scores" that 7 has? It's bulls#@t! Out of five scores, they take your lowest one, and that's your final score. You can have 7.9 in four areas, and 1.0 in one. Your final score is 1.0. There was a dude on here recently wanting to know why he could do no higher than 5.9. All of his other scores were in the 7's. The hard drive score (the last one) was the 5.9, and it was a decent one. On my Latitude D610, that particular score was 7.2. Now how did a 5 year old drive that spins @ 5400 outdo one that runs @ 7200 rpm? By the way, my final on it is a 1.0 because no Aero.

Meh... it's a Dell.

@Catilley - I have the same problem, all of my specs are in the 7s, except the HDD is the same old boring 5.9. And yea, I know it's going to score low, I just want to see if it gets over 1.0.

Hey Dude, there's nothing wrong with those Dell's, especially the business models. I've had three Latitudes, and they are tough. The one I'm own as I'm typing hasn't been powered down for over a week. And the drives are tough. In an earlier thread (a week or so ago) we were discussing CCleaner and overwriting 35 times was way too much, in some opinion's, including yours. Well, I decided to put it to the test. I recovered as many deleted files from my desktop as I could, and the ones from this one, too. I created a folder in my documents to force feed the files, as they were being overwritten. I started on a Friday, 10 days ago, and CCleaner deleted files (in the 35x overwriting method). For four straight days, CCleaner ran in this mode, most of the time slid in my pullout shelf where my chair goes in (to make it run hotter). It deleted over 100GB of files in that time, really it was more, but it was at least that much. Then, using Recuva (w/no break) I recovered any traces of files that were left (about 40GB), and after recovery, ran it another day and a half at the same rate. There was very little airflow to cool the laptop, and I put my hand below the laptop and on top of the hard drive, it was HOT! But it did the job, a five year old laptop, still running right now. Dell may not make the parts that they build their computers with, but they do pick out high quality parts to assemble them with. By the way, this laptop is still under warranty until mid October. If the company can't fix it, or it's too expensive to do so, they refund my every cent I paid for it. I'm looking to buy a new one this fall.

I couldn't rip on Dell for being unreliable either, the old OptiPlex I mentioned earlier we called the "Penium 3 with super-powers" for the reason it took on anything I threw at it, when my dad had issues with his P4. Anyway, back in the days when he was a part of the work force, he kept his old AMD powered Dell running for weeks at a time, maybe a month or so. The only time I remember seeing it off was when I had to clean it out. The dishwasher was actually helpful...