Dimension 8400 problems

This is what I was looking for, thanks. Trouble is, I now have the problem of

 

 "no boot device available" message.

 

I cannot get away from this message. Any ideas?    Matt

 

sawl

See if this can help with the 0x00000024 error.

Bev.


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Please don't send me questions about your system by DCF Messenger.
Post the issue in the appropriate Board, where they will be answered.

Oh and the led lights at the back read; ABC = green and D = yellow. Thanks, Matt

sawl

Try reseating power and data cables to the hard drive, but it could also, be a failed hard drive, try running diagnostics extended test on it.

Bev.


===================================================
Please don't send me questions about your system by DCF Messenger.
Post the issue in the appropriate Board, where they will be answered.

And try clearing NVRAM by powering off and disconnecting PC from the wall.  Press/hold power button for ~15 sec then open the case and remove the battery from the motherboard. Pressh/hold power button again for ~30 sec. Reinstall the battery (right-side up!) and see if it boots now.

 

Ron 

Excuse my ignorance but whereabouts is the battery situated? I can't see anything that looks like a battery (looking for a disc one right?) There's something with smsc on it and sst but they don't look like batteries. Sorry.

      Matt

Read this and this.

 

 

3-Volt CR2032 lithium coin cell.  ~$2-$3 at Walmart, etc.

 

Ron 

 

 

Thanks Shesagordie and RoHe, I found the battery, tada! Turned on and off etc. I now have all four lights green, but, as I have a brand new hard drive, have just a blank screen with a small prompt top left. I have put in the Windows XP disc to reload but first it said that my hard drive cannot be found (I checked the connections) and now I cannot get to reload Windows at all. I thought about using floppies but for some reason cannot format the ones I have. I tried pressing all the f's to reload windows but nothing works. Any ideas? Thanks, Matt

 

Oh and when I press f4 and get the copyright 'all rights reserved ' screen, it tells me there is a keyboard failure'. Joy.

 

Just an update= I changed the CMOS settings and can now reload windows, but I'm still getting the 'not find any hard disc drives installed in your computer' message. I can't see where I set it up wrong though. I just copied the way it was set up before.

Thanks alot Ron!! It worked without having to bother with floppies. Just waiting to see if Windows XP loads OK. Fingers crossed. Cheers.

Run BIOS setup and change the SATA Controller setting to RAID AUTODETECT/ATA. Save the change and exit setup. Try the install again.

 

Ron 

Just wanted to give this link as it was really helpful to me; http://www.windowsxphome.windowsreinstall.com/installxpcdnewhdd/indexfullpage.htm

 

Now I have to build a floppy. Go on the Dell website and find the right motherboard. But my other computer will not let me format a floppy grrrr.

 

Thanks for all the help, the light is at the end of the tunnel.:robotvery-happy:

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@sawl wrote:
Thanks for all the help, the light is at the end of the tunnel..

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Yeah, that's the train coming straight at you. :D

 

Assuming you formatted the new drive (use NTFS), Windows should load without further problems. Just be sure to download SP3 and all the other Microsoft updates for Internet Explorer, Office, .net etc etc asap.

 

Ron 

To be honest Ron, what does NTFS and SP3 mean? We did have a problem running Windows XP after shutting it down the first time. It runs fine now though :smileywink:

<>A hard drive has to be formatted before it can be used. NTFS (NT File System) is one of the hard drive formats that Windows recognizes. Older versions of Windows used the FAT (File Allocation Table) format. XP will recognize and use either format, and you have the choice of format when formatting a new hard drive, but NTFS is much more efficient and is the better choice.

 

SP3 = Service Pack 3 for Windows XP.  Microsoft issues service packs which include all the updates released since the previous release of the Operating System. There were than 100 updates (mostly security fixes) released after XP Service Pack 2. So SP3 contains all those plus a few extra tweaks and improvements.

 

It's likely the Dell CD you used to install XP on the new hard drive is only XP SP2. So that means you need to download/install SP3 (free) to get all the subsequent updates and fixes. It's a whole lot easier to install all those updates with a Service Pack than it is to do them one at a time. ;)  But without them, your system has lots of security holes where malware can sneak in and do bad things.

 

Go to the MS update site and let it scan your system. It should offer you SP3. Since this is a new hard drive, you'll need to download ~360 MB for Service Pack 3, so I hope you have broadband internet!

 

Ron