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dell wont boot after ide change

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11 replies

by jupiterick

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so i got an old dell dimension 4100 p3 1ghz i am attempting to replace the cd\rw with a dvd rom ,funny thing happens when i installed the drive ,the machine would load windows ,the video card would display and then "unbootable disk in drive A " error message .unplugged the dvd drive with same result ,completely removed the ide cable from the mb with same result .the bios is set to auto detect ide device ,the hard drive is recognized .reattached the cd\rw drive and windows booted normal,changed boot order from 1-cd,2-fdd,3-hdd to 1-hdd,2-disabled and machine would not load windows with same error message,the weird thing is the machine only works with the cd\rw drive attached and the bios boot order returned to cd\fdd\hdd .has anyone seen this type of behavior? is there a bios issue that only allows propeitory devices to work ? if so will an intel 815 mb bios work on this dell board ?i want to use this for network attached storage\media center ,but without a dvd drive it will go into the kids room.any ideas ???

11 replies

by jupiterick

update found that it will go to unbootable disk message ,give three finger salute then f2 into bios ,exit without saving and it will load windows,im currently reconfigureing the jumpers on the ide devices ,did score a 80g hard drive that was jumpered to 32g YES!my luck is changing !!

by jupiterick

also upgraded the bios from a03 to a11 ,didnt help with the boot problem but windows found a scsi device but i cant find a connector for one

by jupiterick

found a bad floppy drive while upgrading the bios swaped a good one in,removed it and replaced the 80g hd that was jumpered to 32g with a 200g after putting all the jumpers in the right spots every thing seems to be working with the ata cable unplugged ,(who needs a floppy drive anyway)i have no idea how it was working before ,hope everything keeps working,and some of you got a good laugh anyway

by hal 9000

After you Flashed the BIOS did you clear it? With those 815 M'Boards you need to clear the BIOS before attempting to boot or the new settings will not be loaded.

It's one of the nice things about the 815 Chip Set M'Boards.

Col

by jupiterick

i do love my s370 boards ,i think the pentium 3s are underrated,which is good for me keeps em cheep .in my playing around i found an jumper on the mb that put it into diagnostic mode and resets the bios to default. thanks ,it still seems to be working ,looks like the kid keeps his slot one

by mr.wiz

Make sure all of your drives are set to cable select. Dell pc's require that and will give boot errors if one of the drives isn't set correctly.

by jupiterick

ive got the hard drive set to master on the primary ide bus ,the dvd rom set to master on the secondary ide bus ,this seems to be working .i suspect that after the ide change the bios did not reach the point where it auto-detects ide devices and just went to the floopy and stopped ,after exiting bios it detected the drives and booted ,after removing the ata drive it seems to be working ,thanks

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