6Contents
FILE LOCATION: C:\Documents and Settings\patricia_drake\Desktop\New Folder\D5016bk0TOC.fm
DELL CONFIDENTIAL – PRELIMINARY 3/18/04 – FOR PROOF ONLY
7Solving Problems
Dell Diagnostics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
When to Use the Dell Diagnostics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
Error Messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
Video and Display Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
If the display is blank . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
If the display is difficult to read. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
If only part of the display is readable. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
Scanner Problems. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
Drive Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
If you cannot save a file to a floppy drive. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
If you have problems with a hard drive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
PC Card Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
General Program Problems. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
A program crashes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
A program stops responding. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
Error messages appear . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
Resolving Other Technical Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
If Your Computer Gets Wet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
If You Drop or Damage Your Computer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
Drivers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
What Is a Driver? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Identifying Drivers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Reinstalling Drivers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Manually Reinstalling Drivers for Windows XP . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
Resolving Software and Hardware Incompatibilities . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
Using System Restore . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
Creating a Restore Point. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
Restoring the Computer to an Earlier Operating State . . . . . . . . . . 72
Undoing the Last System Restore . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
Reinstalling Microsoft® Windows® XP. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
Before You Reinstall. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
Reinstalling Windows XP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73