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Dell Dimension 3000 not booting properly. Need your help.
Hello all:
In advance I appreciate your input and feedback. Here's the situation. My Dell Dimension 3000 with XP Windows Home Edition is not booting properly, in fact not at all. I won't give you the full version of how I got here, just the tech facts. It's been a long week.
When I boot the computer I get an error message:
Windows could not start because of a computer disk hardware configuration problem. Could not read from the selected boot disk. Check boot path and disk hardware. Please check the Windows documentation about hardware disk configuration and your hardware reference manuals for additional information.
When I enter setup F2 I noticed that the Boot sequence only has the Hard-Disk Drive C: listed. There are no other options listed. Also, I put in my Windows CD disk in the disk drive and the computer is not reading from it as if it doesn't work. So, I can't access the software to repair any issues that may be occurring in the BIOS or the Boot files.
SUMMARY:
- Desktop not booting to Windows.
- Get an error screen
- Computer not accessing the CD disk drives (I actually disconnected the CD/R-CD drive because I think it is dead)
- I'm able to access the Menus in F2, F8, and F12. I tried to boot in Safe Mode and it doesn't work. Nothing works.
- Before this all happened I had some tech folks do a complete security scan of the computer and hardware diagnostics. Result: all negative. No issues.
I appreciate your help in giving me a next step in solving this problem so I can get my computer back. Thanks again.
RoHe
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July 30th, 2012 14:00
If one optical drive is not working, you should disconnect it from both power and IDE ribbon cable. Connect remaining hard drive to end of the IDE ribbon. Then do the "battery thing" to reset BIOS and try to boot from CD drive again.
ROn
RoHe
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July 28th, 2012 22:00
Are all 4 diagnostic LEDs on rear of the tower green when it won't boot?
To which connector on the IDE ribbon is the remaining CD drive connected? It has to be at the end of the cable to be bootable.
If you have the Dell "Restores" (might say "Utilities") CD, put that in the optical drive, reboot and press F12. Select Boot from CD on that menu. Run the diagnostics on the hard drive.
I wonder if your teck folks deleted or damaged a key Windows file or changed some setting which caused this problem... ??
Cabloco
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July 29th, 2012 20:00
Rohe,
Thanks for the questions and feedback. All 4 diagnostics LEDs on the rear of the tower are green when I boot. Seems fine.
The CD Drives are connected to the Drive 0 and Drive 1 end of the cables.
I only have the original Windows XP software.
Yes, I think there is an issue with the settings. I believe that when the tech folks which ran the hardware and PC tune diagnostics (all came back negative) did something to the computer.
RoHe
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July 29th, 2012 21:00
Maybe you should take it back to those dumb tech people and make them fix it... ??
You can try this:
Power off, unplug, and press/hold power button for ~15 sec. Open the case and remove the motherboard battery. Press/hold power button again for ~30 sec. Then reinstall the battery (right-side-up!) and reboot with only mouse, monitor and keyboard connected. That resets BIOS to factory defaults and if you're lucky maybe it'll boot now.
Cabloco
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July 30th, 2012 01:00
I wish I could take it back. These guys wanted to charge me for the hardware diagnostics. After bitching about it they did it for free. No, there are not going to help me fix this. They think it's a hardware problem.
I did what you suggested and it did not boot into Windows. :-( However, I did notice that when I booted it said that it was reading Drive 0 (the cd/rewritable drive that doesn't work). It ran an IGE? configuration. Then it suggested F1 or F2 at the bottom of the message, as before. I went into Setup to put the date and time.
So, we know that the system is not getting a signal from one of the drives. Setup was set back to factory settings. That's it so far. Thanks again.
Cabloco
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July 30th, 2012 08:00
CORRECTION: ...However, I did notice that when I booted it, the computer screen showed that it was NOT reading the Drive 0....
Cabloco
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July 31st, 2012 04:00
Good News! I was able to boot from CD drive. Reinstalled Windows XP, then updated the to Service Pack 3, updated Internet Explorer and downloaded some drives from Dell. Only issue is that my login User Profiles do not appear at all at the Windows Welcome page. They didn't migrate correctly after installing Windows XP Home, albeit I checked the C drive and I see all my files there in different folders. How do I restore my User Profiles and access my former desktop? Appreciate the help Ron.
RoHe
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July 31st, 2012 13:00
Hmmm....
It sounds like you did a "parallel" installation of XP rather than a reinstallation. In a clean reinstall, you wipe everything off the drive and start over, meaning all your files and profiles are lost unless they're backed up on external media first.
If you did a parallel installation, you now have two copies of Windows on your drive. You will have to recreate all your profiles so you can access those files. Even if you can access them by creating new profiles, you've used twice as much hard drive space for Windows than is necessary, and two copies of Windows might cause other problems. There's no way to undo a parallel install, aside from wiping the drive.
My recommendation is you create new profiles to access those files and then back them up on external media. Then reformat the hard drive and do a clean install. I know it sounds like a lot of work, but you'll be better off in the long run.
Cabloco
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August 1st, 2012 19:00
Rohe,
I did a clean install per your suggestion and backed up my profile files on my external drive. So, the good news is I no longer have booting issues and the system is cleaned out. I also backed up my Programs folder. So is the next step to access my User Profile and have it reinstalled in the desktop? If so, how do I do this correctly? Likewise, I will have to reinstall programs individually from the Programs Folder, right?
Thanks
RoHe
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August 1st, 2012 22:00
Go here and read the info under the heading "Copying your user profile".
You can't just copy the program folder from your backup copy onto the hard drive. Programs have to be installed into Windows. You'll need to run the installation CD for every application you need and launch its Setup program. Hope you have all those disks and the product keys that go with them.