Win XP OEM CD won't boot some Dell PCs...

[blw]

My apologies if this has been covered elsewhere in this forum. I've searched the forum and the web in general via Google and I don't see anyone else reporting this symptom:

I have a Dell OEM Windows XP Home SP1 CD. This CD will boot and start installations on a ~1-year old Dimension (1.8GHz Celeron?) and a very old Dell GX1 (PIII 450MHz). (I haven't actually installed on these, as I got the CD for one of the two PCs mentioned below.) The Pid value in SETUPP.INI ends in "OEM", so it does seem to be an OEM CD and it works with a wide range of Dell PCs.

I have two Dell Dimension PCs, one an L550r (PIII 550MHz, 512MB of RAM) and an L600cx (600MHz Celeron, 256MB of RAM). Neither of these Dimensions will boot from the same OEM CD that works on the older and younger Dells mentioned above - I just get an "Invalid Boot Diskette" error. Made sure boot order in BIOS set to boot from optical drive first. Tried a variety of optical drives (CD-RW and DVD-ROM). Upgraded BIOS from A09 or A10 to A14. Tested Win98 and XP Pro CDs on same PCs, same optical drives, these boot fine.

Any ideas at all why this OEM CD won't boot these two L-Series Dimensions but work fine even on an old GX1?

Thanks in advance.

[tinmanjohnny]

Dell,as well as some Gateway OEM OS CD's, will only boot and install to the the same PC with the same BIOS chip installed. My guess is somewhere Dell altered the BIOS in these PC's so only the original CD's will reinstall the operating system back. In the CD there is a BIOSEXE program along with others. This ID's the PC as GO/NOGO with regards to install. I soon find out the blockers and post my findings. It's only fair.We bought the software from the manufactuer and We should be able to use it.