I bought two sticks of 240-pin DIMM1Gb DDR2 PC-4200 from crucial. My system has four memory slots, with four 256mb sticks in it. If I replace the sticks in slot 1 and 2 with the 1gig sticks, when I boot up the system it tries to run XP then goes to a blue error screen saying “UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME”. When I put the 1gig sticks in slots 3 & 4 the system will not start up at all, but the system internal speaker starts beeping until I cut the power. I have tried every configuration of using and removing the 256mb sticks but they do not seem to change anything.
When I was buying the memory, I used the crucial system scanner which detected my system as a Dell Dimension 5150 but it is actually a Dimension E510, however the memory for both systems seems to be identical. I have updated to the latest Bios (version A07). I do not think it is a problem with the memory itself because when go to the bios setting it shows the 2.5gigs under the system info tab.
First of all, thanks very muchly for taking the time to help. But sadly I did place the ram in the 1 & 3 and 2 & 4 positions, both with and without the original two 256mb sticks but with both configurations I still got the “UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME” error.
I have also tried contacting Crucial directly and so far all they say is “try updating the Bios” however I do intend to continue trying to find an answer to my problem from them as well.
Out of desperation I decided two once again try the ram sticks in each slot once more and it paid off. I have no clue why it did not work the first time, but putting the 1gig sticks in slots 2 & 4 and putting the 256mb sticks in slots 1 & 3 did the trick. Thanks to all for the help!
