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Dell Dimension 1100 (Win7 Install Issues)
Hello all;
I often build custom systems, however someone in the family recently asked me to install Windows 7. I never like working on any retail systems, always run into problems. Their computer is a Dell Dimension 1100 that was running Windows XP.
Here's the problem. On the Dell, I set the bios to boot from the DVD drive so it would run the Win7 installer. When booting it does boot from the disk, and goes through the Windows installer loading screen. However after that point, it errors out. I even tried hooking up an external DVD drive to run the disk from, however it never recognizes the USB DVD drive. So the next step I took, is pulling the drive out and attaching it to my own system. From there, I wiped the partitions and installed a fresh copy of Win7 64bit onto the drive. This worked flawlessly, and I then reattached it back into the Dell. However now when I boot up the Dell, it goes through the initial bios loading screen, and then errors. The exact error it shows is ' Primary drive 1 not found, Secondary drive 1 not found. ' It appears that it is no longer detecting the hard drive. In bios, going to Drive Configuration and choosing Primary Drive, it does show the Seagate drive.
I'm not exactly sure why it's no longer detecting the drive. I've ensured it's hooked up and attached fine 3 times now. I had only detached the power and IDE cable. I have attached screenshots below of the boot screen, errors, and bios and settings.
If anyone might know what has happened, or why the Dell is not detecting the drive it would be most help and with a solution if possible. I put the drive in my system, and it detected just fine and booted into Windows. So it appears the Dell system refuses to boot from the drive, and appears not to detect it, even though in Bios it shows up.
Dell Boot Screen - http://pkhq.net/images/dellbootscreen.jpg
Primary / Secondary Drive Errors - http://pkhq.net/images/delldriverror.jpg
Bios Main Screen - http://pkhq.net/images/dellbios.jpg
Bios : Drive Configuration : Primary Master - http://pkhq.net/images/delldriveconfig_primarymaster.jpg
Bios : Boot Sequence : http://pkhq.net/images/dellbootseq.jpg
All help is appreciated. Thank you.
speedstep
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December 11th, 2014 08:00
Dimension 1100 will not run minecraft. Minimum recommended GPU is now Radeon HD5450.
INTEL 800 Series Graphics is not sufficient.
BARE minimum is a GX620
shesagordie
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January 14th, 2013 17:00
imperialyap
Did you run Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor first?
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=20
Bev.
electromagnetic
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January 14th, 2013 17:00
Put your hard drive as Master and DVDrom drive as slave.
Windows 7 system requirements
If you want to run Windows 7 on your PC, here's what it takes:
1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor
1 gigabyte (GB) RAM (32-bit) or 2 GB RAM (64-bit)
16 GB available hard disk space (32-bit) or 20 GB (64-bit)
DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver
imperialyap
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January 14th, 2013 18:00
Thanks Speedstep. I'll go check out the bios and see about the double drives and cdroms it is showing. I actually never changed anything regarding the bios from how it was originally; only the boot sequence. I also recently tried the Alt-E Alt-F Alt-B and it did reset the bios and all, but still same error.
It not using the onboard video, I'm aware of this. It is using an AMD GPU, older but suffice at x1600.
// Edit - Drive Configuration shows this:
1. Primary Master - Hard Drive(set to the seagate)
2. Slave - Off
3. Primary Secondary - CD Drive
4. Slave - Off
imperialyap
5 Posts
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January 14th, 2013 18:00
@electromagnetic, thanks for the reply. Although you can't see it in the screenshot, under Drive Configuration, the actual 80GB drive is set as the primary master, which is the only hard drive. The system does meet the requirements. It's a 2.4ghz cpu, 2GB RAM, and the 80GB drive, with a DX 9 video card. The issue is very strange.
@shesagordie, thanks. No I didn't but the system specs do match up and exceed the requirements. The issue appears to be simply with not locating or reconfigure the hard drive.
speedstep
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January 14th, 2013 18:00
First off your BIos is set wrong. The error indicates you told it you have 2 hard drives and 2 DVD or CDROM Drives.
While the case will hold that you probably do not have that. Only DRive 0 should be enabled on primary and secondary controllers.
The B110/1100 has 32 bit 33mhz PCI video. And the onboard INTEL Graphics is not supporting WIN7 EVER.
A Geforce 8400 PCI would work but IMHO not worth the effort.
You can buy an Optiplex GX320/GX620 Tower for $99 and get SATA Hard Drive and WIN7 Support.
For $130 microcenter has them PRE INSTALLED with Windows 7 32 bit.
2nd ALL DRIVES should be set at cable select.
3rd You can press F12 to tell it to boot form the DVD
However It MUST HAVE a DVD drive not a CD win7 is DVD ONLY.
Onboard INTEL Graphics is not DX9 card with 128 megs of ram for the GPU.
speedstep
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January 14th, 2013 18:00
But WIN7 in all flavors is a DVD. CD Drive wont work.
All Drives should be set CABLE SELECT
not MASTER
NOT SLAVE.
Grey connector is 2nd Drive Black Connector is 1st Drive0 Blue Connector goes to motherboard.
You may not have an 80 wire cable for the CDROM but you should use one.
The DVD drive will need it in order to not fallback to PIO Mode due to 40 wire Grey cable.
imperialyap
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January 14th, 2013 19:00
Speedstep, I do appreciate you taking the time to help. The rom is a DVD sorry for any confusion. I went into the boot setup, and ran a IDE test, and here was the results -
http://pkhq.net/images/IMAG0488.jpg
Also it's not a combined IDE cable. The DVDROM has it's own, and same with the hard drive. Those are however the only two in the system. Also, it was working just a few hours ago. Up until I took the drive out, installed Win7, and then reinstalled it back into the system just like it was before.
imperialyap
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January 14th, 2013 20:00
Thanks rdunnill. Yeah this system surprisingly does not have any sata drives, as I had a spare one I was gonna use and put win7 on it.. unfortunately it has literally no sata. Sad.
speedstep
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January 14th, 2013 20:00
The original Wire for the DVD is grey 40 wire cable. This will have ISSUES with DVD drives due to PIO vs UDMA.
Drives fall back to PIO mode when used with 40 wire cables. 80 Wire cables have the 3 colors for the connectors for Motherboard Drive 0 and Drive 1.
speedstep
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January 14th, 2013 20:00
You need 2 cables Like this
www.newegg.com/.../Product.aspx
Blue connectors go to the motherboard.
rdunnill
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January 14th, 2013 20:00
I upgraded a 2350 to Windows 7, but used a SATA card with a SATA hard drive and SATA optical drive. It works fine.
I suspect there are some issues with your IDE configuration, as others have noted.
rdunnill
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January 14th, 2013 22:00
The 2350 doesn't have SATA, either, so I installed one of these. You may need to reflash its BIOS with a non-RAID version.
Use a third-party LED for front panel LED activity functionality: http://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-15-PC-HDD-Hard-Drive-Power-Status-LED-Cable-Computer-Case-Connector-Wire-/271135904634?pt=US_Computer_Case_Accessories_Tool_Kits&hash=item3f20f5937a.
jenk828
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December 10th, 2014 21:00
How do you install Windows 7 from a USB drive on the Dell Dimension 1100?
shesagordie
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December 11th, 2014 06:00
jenk828
Page 84 here:
http://ftp.dell.com/Manuals/all-products/esuprt_desktop/esuprt_dimension_desktops/dimension-1100_owner%27s%20manual_en-us.pdf
Bev.