No hard drive detected - Optiplex 960

Hi drew8490,

Check if the hard drive is detected in BIOS.

Restart the computer and tap F2 at Dell logo. Under” Drives” select “Drives” again. Now check if the hard drive is detected.

You may run diagnostics on the computer.

• To test the hardware, run diagnostics.
• Turn on or restart the computer.
• When the Dell logo appears, press immediately. If you wait too long and the operating system logo appears, continue to wait until you see the Microsoft Windows desktop, and then shut down the computer and try again.
• When the boot device list appears, highlight Boot to Utility Partition and press .
• When the Dell Diagnostics main menu appears, select the test you want to run.

Let me know the status.

Hi Rajesh,

Thanks for the response.

After tapping F2, on the right half of the screen, two Drives were checked: SATA-1 and External SATA.

Then, I tapped F12 and the Boot Device Menu appeared, BUT there was no "Boot to Utility Partition" option.  The menu includes only:

                           * Onboard or USB CD-Rom Drive

                              [space]

                           * System Setup

                           * Diagnostics

                           * Intel(R) Management Engine BIOS Extension (MEBx)

What now?

Hi drew8490,

Select “Diagnostics” and run diagnostics on the computer.

Let the diagnostics complete. Post back with results.

After I ran the Diagnostics (which had the heading of Pre-boot System Assessment Build 4521), the following message appeared:  "Pre-boot System Assessment complete.  No Diagnostic Utility Partition identified.  Please select Ok to reboot your system."  "Ok" was the only option.

Now what?

Hi drew8490,

Did you check if the hard drive is detected in BIOS?

If the hard drive is still not detected, reseat the hard drive:

http://dell.to/11IF2oz

****NOTE: Before Opening the chassis, I recommend you to disconnect the Power cord.Now press and hold the power button for few seconds and release to drain the flea power.

Let me know how it goes.

Re-seated hard drive, but still not detected.

Hi drew8490,

You may try swapping the DVD drive cable with the hard drive and check if the hard drive is detected.

Also, try connecting the hard drive to the DVD drive cable slot on the motherboard.

Let em know how it goes.

i also have 960.

how do i enable the SATA connectors?  its not the drives or cables.

connector plug 0, and 1 work with any combo of drive or cable.

but 2 and 3 do not.

i have a hard drive,  and a DVD drive, i can swap them and will all work on 0, and 1.

but when i try to add a 3rd drive using SATA port 2 or 3 it wont work (again, it will work on 0 or 1).

i can try different cables, and will only work on 0, and 1.

so its not the cables, and its not the drives.

some reason i can't turn on or activate the 2, and 3 SATA ports in order to use them.

thanks

i figured it out in setup pressing F12, SATA port 2 and 3 was not enabled.

working now. after i enabled it.