Boots to the F1/F2 screen

The error message you see that says the system can't see the hard drive - is it complaining about the first or second hard disk? You said your drive is "divided in two" but that doesn't mean you should tell SETUP to look for two drives. in SETUP, your first drive should be set to auto detect, but the second drive should be set to OFF or it will generate that error.

only one drive, but setup into two partitions. Bios set for auto detect and it shows it sees that harddrive, B U T >>>

should you choose not to go into setup but let the thing take it'e course it goes thru bootup than says it does not detect any hard drive but gives me the option of hitting F1 and then after doing the F1 thing it  boots to the winXP window and finally boots to desktop. In otherwords it will not start up nor restart  without going thru that double step bootup.

 

Sorry for any confusion in explaining the procedure.

Okay, if BIOS is only looking for one HD, and it doesn't see it until AFTER the system finishes POST, I'm going to guess that the HD is slow to wake up, and your machine is set to QUICK boot. What model HD is this? Maxtor may have some online specs that would say how long this drive takes to spin up, and we can see if your machine isn't waiting that long.

Well I reset the bios from "quick boot" to it's only other choice "off" and still no difference. As the specs would not mean anything to me , the drive is a brand new Maxtor Ultra Series ATA 133,7200rpm,8mb cache.

It is suppose to be one of the good ones? This behavior did not exist with the removed 30g Western Digital.

The Maxtor came with a pci card that enables one to run it at  ATA133 however, my Dell would not boot from the pci slot so I removed the pci adapter card and plugged the drive into the board knowing it would run only as a ATA100 but that would be ok with me.

But I have this boot problem now. So..... I guess I would like to find out if this is a "quirk" because of the way i am running it? Or can something I have overlooked or not known to me be done to correct this pattern of startup.

 

Is anyone else out there running the same drive without problems?????

Laura, have you resolved your F1/ F2 problem?

I am experiencing the same problem. I've got an Optiplex GX110, just installed a new Maxtor 160 GB HD with Promise Ultra ATA133 controller card. This is my only drive. Partitioned it into 2 partitions. Installed W2K. Using Bios A09. The computer seems to be working fine, except on boot up I get the "Press F1 to continue or F2 for setup". If I press F1, the system boots into W2K fine. The controller card/HD is the primary master (set to auto in the bios), primary slave set to off, secondary master to CD-ROM drive, secondary slave to off. Did not have this problem with the old 10GB drive.

However, I have recently been experiencing the problem with the clock losing time- but when I'd go into the BIOS, the time/date would be correct. Only just installed the new drive today, so don't know if I still have the clock problems.

I hava a Dell 8200 series that boots up to the F1 - F2 screen.  For the last 5 months it has booted up to windows XP after pressing F1.     F2 goes to setup.  I have A09 Bios installed. 

The computer had problems and dell put a new motherboard and a new power supply in the computer a year ago.  Soon after, the computer started booting to the F1 - F2 screen. 

Anyone, know how to fix this problem.

 

Thanks,

Louis

Louis911a,

In the future, note that it is always more polite if you post a new message with a new problem, rather than jumping in to someone else's thread and creating a confusion. 

When the message is on the screen to hit F1 or F2, look at the back of your computer for the 4 diagnostic lights which give a code that may tell you what the problem is.  The following document will help interrupt the code: 

<ADMIN NOTE: Broken link has been removed from this post by Dell>

Post back what you find.

Steve

set your bios setting to default and clear the nvram. it should work.. for one screen bios such as yours, loading the setup defaults is by pressing alt f and clearing nvram is by pressing alt e (you should hear one beep). then alt b to save and exit. 

I found the answer to my problem in a thread by micmaxe in

http://forums.us.dell.com/supportforums/board/message?board.id=dim_bios&message.id=21956.

Basically it appears that my computer is set to auto detect primary drive 0 on the mainboard IDE controller, but I'm booting to the drive connected to the controller card. I set primary drive 0 to off and now it boots fine.

Hope this works for others.

I'm new to forums so  - sorry about starting in someone else's thread. 

When computer boots up to F1 screen (says the harddrive is operating outside of Dell's specifications - please contact support to replace the harddrive).  Well - the drive has been working the past 6 months this way.

The diagnostic lights on back of computer are green,green,green,yellow - at the F1 screen.  According to Dell this means look at your Solutions book that came with computer.  I can't find anything in the book.

Thanks for your help.

Louis

I've tried setting the bios to defaults and clearning the nram or whatever.   Still get F1 screen.  I will try this again.

Thanks,

 

Louis

When this advisory message appear, I would strongly recommend that you have the hard drive replaced. Make sure to back up any valuable data on your current drive. Even if the current drive continues to function, it may cease to function in the near future.