Hard disk crash - can't access bios

Question

Dimension 4600, Windows XP Home, nothing fancy.   Something nasty has happened to my hard disk. Windows won't boot. When this happened before I managed to rescue the data by booting from a CD. However, when the BIOS screen appears pressing F2 or F12 does nothing, the system just rolls past and attempts to boot from the hard drive.   I've tried a USB and a PS/2 port keyboard -- to no avail. In both cases the NUM LOCK light switches on when I hit the key.   I've tried pulling the battery to reset the BIOS rom settings, without success.   Any other ideas?

billby · Answer

Should have mentioned, there's no floppy drive on this machine. I would like to boot from a recovery CD.

Majestic · Answer

A couple of suggestions..... try tapping the F2 key as soon as the system is powered up.    Regarding the battery removal.... did you follow the procedure I have listed below?  If not, the remaining electrical charge on the motherboard wasn't fully dissipate and therefore the NVRAM was not cleared.  If the NVRAM was successfully cleared you would have been prompted to enter the time and date at boot up.  Along with the need to enter the time and date would be an opportunity to enter the BIOS Setup and change the boot sequence for the CD drive.   With the machine unplugged from the wall remove the battery from the motherboard.  Then with the machine still unplugged press the On button for several seconds to dissipate any remaining electrical charge on the motherboard.  Then re-install the battery, plug the machine back into the wall and boot the system up.

billby · Answer

When I get home from work later today, I'll try tapping the F2 button from the moment I switch on. The whole BIOS screen only displays for a second, maybe two so there's not much time to react. This doesn't seem right to me. Could this be a clue to the problem?

I followed your battery procedure to the letter. Then I tried it again waiting overnight before switching the machine back on. I also tried switching the machine on with the battery removed. In each case I saw EXACTLY the same thing, as described above. All in all I tried the procedure more than 20 times. On a couple of occasions there was a brief glimpse of a text only screen, no Dell logo. But too brief to read anything.

I suspect the boot procedure might not get as far as the point where the BIOS setup thing kicks-in.

One other point. Whenever I press the F2 or F12 key, the num-lock lamp comes on. Is this significant?

I could also have mentioned the indicator lamps light up green, green, green, yellow -- the mysterious 'other' error.

billby · Answer

Hitting the F2 key from switch-on has no effect. I've tried the PS2 keyboard and a USB keyboard. I guess it's just not getting the message.

Majestic · Answer

Try opening up your system and disconnecting the hard drive(s) and CD drive(s).  Then see if their disconnection allows the system to boot up so you can enter the BIOS Setup and change the boot order.  If so then leave the hard drive disconnected and plug the CD Drive(s) back in and try booting again.  If the machine will boot to a CD with no amber diagnostic lights displayed then suspect the hard drive has died.

billby · Answer

I've disconnected the hard drive and the combo drive and am still getting exactly the same thing:

1. Computer switches on.

2. Dell logo screen appears.

3. Pressing keys does nothing.

4. Logo screen disappears in a couple of seconds, there's not even enough time for the progress bar display to finish moving across the screen.

billby · Answer

I guess this means a new motherboard?

Majestic · Answer

Try these trouble-shooting steps.....   If the machine still fails to boot then strip the motherboard down to the bare minimum.  By bare minimum I mean remove all expansion cards, disconnect all drives and leave just the processor, memory and graphics card in the machine after reseating them.  If your model originally came with integrated graphics and you installed an additional graphics card then remove the add-on card for trouble-shooting the system.   If the computer boots this way then start connecting each device one at a time until the no boot scenario returns.  This would then indicate which device has failed and is causing the problem.  Also try booting the system without the keyboard, mouse or any other device plugged into the rear of the system.  If you have more than one memory module installed then try booting with only one and then swap them around and try again.  If this procedure doesn't resolve the problem then you maybe looking at a situation where the motherboard has failed.

billby · Answer

I've part solved this problem. It's the old "two things wrong at once" trick that had you and me stumped.

Basically, the hard drive had crashed so the computer wouldn't boot. That's been fixed.

The other strange behaviour is a video problem. I get about one second of video on boot, and the screen blanks. I can also get about one second of video when I switch the display off - and then back on again. I'm going to take this problem to the Dimension Video forum.

Eric21ND · Answer

'the hard drive had crashed so the computer wouldn't boot. That's been fixed.'   by fixed do you mean you were able to retrieve your data?  If you did you have to clue me in becuase my HD crashed a few days ago.  I got a new on installed right now, but have a ton of data on the old one.

billby · Answer

I took the computer to the local PC shop. The techs installed a new hard drive (a bigger one 160GB, the old one was just 80GB). The old drive is now a slave. Windows is loaded on the new drive. Although I can't boot from the old drive, all my data is visible -- but that's because I had it partitioned into C: and D: drives. Windows and apps on C:, data on D:.

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Hard disk crash - can't access bios

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