Dimension 3000 fails to seek diskette drive

The CD drive IS connected, and it still says it's not installed. I connected the cable to a different CD drive that I KNOW is a good one and it still says it is not installed.

I set the bios to boot up from the cd drive. The CD drive comes on, I can hear it spinning, but the computer still says it's not installed.

I stopped by a computer shop this morning and the guy gave me a new cable to try and he said something about making sure the jumper was in the right place on the CD drive. I haven't touched that at all so it is as it was originally. The jumper on the HD is set to "Cable Ready"

You're not listening!! :emotion-7:

Master is the WRONG setting for the CD dirve. The D3000 requires the CD drive to be set to Cable Select

What color are the 4 diagnostic LEDs on rear of tower when it doesn't recognize the CD drive?

Where is that CD drive connected? Same ribbon as the hard drive or separate ribbon? And is it at end or middle connector on the cable? Look at the diagram here to see where hard drive (IDE drive connector, PRI-IDE) and CD/DVD drive connectors are located. And read instructions here to remove/replace a CD drive.

Do you know if the "GOOD' CD drive is jumpered for Cable Select? It may be good in another PC, but if it's not jumpered for Cable Select, the 3000 isn't going to see it. Double check the ribbon and make sure the edge with the red stripe is connected to pin 1 on the CD drive and on motherboard.

After you do all that, remove the motherboard battery and press/hold the power button for ~30 sec. Then reinstall the battery and see if BIOS will recognize the CD drive now.

Yes, OS Install mode limits the system to using only the first 256 MB  of RAM, regardless of how much is physically installed. There were limitations on older systems which required that XP only be allowed to use the first 256 MB of RAM during the installation. After XP is installed, you will disable OS install mode so XP will use all the available RAM. So that's not your problem.

Your first priority is to figure out why the CD drive isn't recognized. I suppose it's possible the IDE controller failed on the motherboard so it can't see the CD drive...

Ron

OK, on the GOOD CD drive I just set the jumper to CSEL and tried again and it still doesn't see the CD

Removing the battery didn't do anything.

As to the lights: A,B, & C are green. D is yellow.

The CD drive is connected directly to the Motherboard. I even installed a new cable for it today.

The jumper on the GOOD CD drive is set to Master.

Both the CD drive connector and the IDE drive connector are in the correct places according to the diagram.

I will go remove the battery and try what you say.

The original CD drive, the jumper is set as it was from the factory.

On the OTHER CD drive it does NOT say CABLE SELECT. It only says, MASTER. SLAVE, & CSEL. I thought that CSEL meant  Cable SELect.

will do

You are correct, CSEL =  Cable Select and that's the correct CD drive jumper setting for the D3000.

This isn't sounding so good. If you can't get it to recognize a known good CD drive that's correctly jumpered, it's possible there's a motherboard failure.

Can I assume you tried the spare cable that the shop gave you with the good CD drive when it's jumpered correctly?

Does the ribbon cable from the hard drive have only a single connector at each end or is there one in the middle too?

Any idea the last time when somebody was able to read from a CD in this system?

Ron

Let's try something totally different...

Disconnect the hard drive from the PRI IDE connector on the motherboard and connect the good CD drive (jumpered for cable select, please) to that connector on the motherboard.

Pop the battery out and press/hold power button for ~30 sec. Reinstall the battery (right-side-up) and see if BIOS recognizes the CD drive on the PRI IDE. If it does, see if it'll boot from the XP CD.

If that works, there may be an issue with the other IDE channel on the motherboard.

Ron

OK, tried that and I still get the SAME response about OS Install enabled, etc...

yes, that is correct.

I'm thinking the same thing unless my friend wants to buy a new motherboard. Then I could install that and she would basically have a new computer.

Just to clarify, you disconnected the hard drive from the motherboard and connected the CD drive to the same motherboard connector where the hard drive was previously connected. And you're matching the colored stripe on the ribbon edge to pin 1 on the motherboard and to pin 1 on the drive.

Correct?

Ron

That error message is irrelevant. Either BIOS sees the CD drive or it doesn't see it.

And assuming BIOS sees the CD drive, it should boot from the Windows XP Reinstallation CD or some other bootable CD (eg, Dell Resources CD) regardless of whether OS Install mode is on or off.

If it makes you feel better, disable OS Install mode for now...

Maybe it's time you take this system into the shop for an expert hands-on assessment...?

Ron