SATA Drives Not Detected

Bios screen (Setup) comes up when you select F2. You should start solving this by selecting Hard Drive Diagnostics from the Boot Menu F12. Run the extended test to see if your hard drive has failed. This can take a while. If the drive has failed, replace it. If it passes, boot to your operating system disk and try a repair. If you need to post again, mention your operating system.

Try Mary G's good suggestions first. But it appears BIOS isn't recognizing any SATA drives, so you may not actually be able to run the hard drive diagnostics.

In that case, you may need to reset BIOS to factory settings. Power off and disconnect the PC from the wall. Press/hold the power button on the tower for ~15 sec. Open the case and remove the battery from the motherboard. <ADMIN NOTE: Broken link has been removed from this post by Dell> It's a silver, coin-shaped about the size of a US quarter. Now press/hold the power button again for ~30 sec.

Reinstall the battery (right-side-up!) and close the case. See if it boots now. And if the battery is more than ~2-3 years old, it may have died and that's why the BIOS settings got scrambled. The 8400 uses a 3-volt  CR2032 lithium coin cell which you can purchase for ~$2-$3 at places like Walmart, Target, drug stores, etc.

Note: If you don't have an internal floppy drive in this system, you'll get a floppy drive error message when you reboot after removing/reinstalling the battery. In that case, run BIOS setup (F2) and set the floppy driver controller to DISABLED. Save the change and exit BIOS setup.

Ron

:emotion-5:

I also have an issue, I believe involves my BIOS settings.  This past Fri, after receiving a warning message that my system battery was low, replaced the system battery.  No problem; printed out all the instructions I would need; popped it in, closed the case and presto, all came back just fine.  HOWEVER, when I went to use the CD or DVD drive Sat night, nothing...........  I checked the BIOS and that section says unavailable, but I don't know how to make the CD available.  I would welcome any suggestions anyone can come up with.  Thanks in advance.

nhnonna in lakeport nh:emotion-2:

I also have an issue with the Dell Dimension 8400.  I hope this is in the right area to post; if not, accept my apologies.  I received an error message upon start up that the system battery had to be replaced.  Went to Home Depot, paid $4 for it, and put it in Friday morning.  I have the latest A09 bios update also.  Switch out went very well.  All my data was back where it was supposed to be and I was pretty proud.  I had printed out all the instructions from the 8400 manual on how to change the battery and followed all instructions; even printed out the setup screens in the bios, by taking digital pictures of each section.  When I went to use the CD on Sat night, however, nothing………  I tried to download new drivers from Dell but didn’t now what make or model the CD or              DVD were.  I tried a system restore….no luck there either.  The drives do not appear in my windows explorer, nor do they appear in the hardware device section of control panel.  I opened the machine up again, checked to be sure the drives were tight and they were fine. Still nothing……When I checked the Boot Sequence page, I found that the ‘onboard or USB CD-ROM Drive (not present) came up AFTER the battery install.  When I printed out that page, it WAS present.  Don’t know how to change this.  If anyone has any suggestions, PLEASE……I’d be very grateful.  Thanks in advance.

nhnonna in Lakeport nh:emotion-4:

You need to follow the instructions in this thread. It's about removing and replacing the CMOS battery in your computer,

thanks Skarpo - I'll give that a whirl tomorrow morning.  I believe I went into each drive and made sure it was 'on' but I'll doublecheck.  When you say 'reset your bios' what does that mean exactly?  I downloaded and installed it from the Dell site; is that what you mean?  I know the CD drive was Drive D and the DVD-R drive was Drive E.  Thanks again.

STILL no luck.  I followed the instructions to reset the BIOS and I got again the message that SATA drives 1,2,3 were not found.  I'm so discouraged; I had hoped that would do the trick.  Any other ideas?  Thanks for your time; I appreciate it.  I have just run out of ideas myself.  :emotion-7:

nhnonna,

It isn't polite to jump into the middle of someone else's thread with your own problems. Next time start your own thread. :emotion-5:

SATA 1,2,3 should be turned off in BIOS, assuming you only have 1 hard drive. So run BIOS setup and disable them again. Also try setting the Drive Controller setting to RAID Autodetect/ATA. Be sure to save the changes before exiting setup.

There are no downloadable drivers for optical drives. They're all built into Windows. So until you get BIOS to recognize the optical drives, there's no chance they'll work in Windows.

Dumb question...You did install the new battery right-side-up, didn't you..?

Ron

I apologize again, as i did in my first thread; as I was not sure of protocol.

Thank you Ron - and yes, I put the battery in with the + side up as instructed.  I'll work on the bios again.  Thanks.  I won't respond to this one again.  I will find instructions on how to start my own thread too.

Sorry.:emotion-10: 

nhnonna

nhnonna,

S'ok, we'll still help.

In looking over one of your earlier posts, you wondered why something was 'there' before you replaced the battery and 'gone' afterwards. Remember that replacing the battery resets BIOS to factory default settings. So if any changes were made to those default settings, they'll all disppear when the battery is removed. And in that case, you have to go back into BIOS and manually set things back the way they were before you pulled the battery.

You mentioned having printed pix of the  BIOS screens. If those are your own, rather than just what's shown in the manual, use them to set things back to the way they were before you pulled the battery. Be sure to save the changes when exiting BIOS and things should get back to normal.

If you read the System Setup Screens paragraph 

<ADMIN NOTE: Broken link has been removed from this post by Dell>

in the 8400 manual, it tells you how to make changes to the various options.

To start your own thread, log into the forum and then click Expand User Panel in  upper right-hand corner of the grey box near top of the screen. Then click Start a Forum Discussion. That should present you with a list of forums to choose, which for this problem you would have chosen Desktop>General Hardware. Clicking that link will take you to the Post a message screen where you can type your message. Click Post when you're done and voila, you've started a new thread.

Ron

Ron

nhnonna Kinda has the same issues I have, so I do not mind him/her posting.

Anyways, I went out and replaced the battery, yet still I have nothing. My computer is recognizing my PATA-0 and PATA-1 drives, but it says they are not supported, even when I go to the setup.

I checked my drives to see if every connection was good and they were tight in the computer, and everything looks perfect from the inside.  Still, my BIOS is not detecting ANY of my SATA drives. I tried resetting my BIOS, but how do I know for sure if it's reset? When I get the Dell screen when I first start up the computer, if I press F2 or F12, it takes the computer FOREVER to enter the mode, along with a beep once the button is pressed.

Do you think my hard drives are shot then? I heard it could also be a motherboard issue. Could my motherboard be the thing that's failing to detect my SATA drives?

I don't understand:  My computer is recognizing my PATA-0 and PATA-1 drives, but it says they are not supported, even when I go to the setup.

How do you know it's recognizing PATA-0 and PATA-1? And where does it say they're not supported?

What color are the 4 diagnostic LEDs on rear of the 8400?  If not all green look up error code here<ADMIN NOTE: Broken link has been removed from this post by Dell>.

Try changing the SATA operations settings in BIOS to RAID Autodetect/ATA.

Make sure USB is not the first device listed in the boot sequence, and that you've disconnected all USB devices like memory sticks, printers, cameras, iPods, etc. -anything the system might think is a hard drive.

Do you have an internal floppy drive in this system? The factory default setting is INTENRAL for the floppy driver controller on the motherboard. Change that to OFF, save the change, and exit setup. Power off, disconnect PC from the wall and press/hold power button for ~15 sec. Pull the battery from the motherboard and press/hold the power button again for at least 30 sec. Reinstall battery and reboot. Go into setup and check the setting for floppy controller. If it's back to INTERNAL, the you know BIOS should have been cleared.

Ron

I know it recognizes the PATA drives because is shows up on the hard drive diagnostics with the proper name of the drive... but it says that the diagnostics are not supported on the drives. This is weird, because they were supported in the past, and I never swapped out a drive. When I open the setup (F2 at the DELL screen), I looked at the boot sequence. I am not sure offhand which is first (I believe the USB/Floppy Drive is), but #2 and #3 are the SATA's and the PATA's I am pretty sure.

Also, when I swap back in the battery, I start up the computer and get a message that says "Performing Automatic IDE Configuration" and the IDE's are essentially the same as the PATA's in a sense right? After it does the configuration, it tells me to press F1 to continue, so I do. The next message tells me that there is no boot device available, and tells me to press F1 to retry, and F2 to reboot.

I do have an internal floppy, but I will try switching the mode to see how it works out, and if the BIOS resets. Once I am able to get home and try the lights out, I will let you know how it goes and if everything is fine on the lights.

Diagnostics aren't supported on the optical drives, unless there's a CD in the drive.

If it's performing IDE configuration after replacing the battery, it sounds like BIOS was reset to factory defaults.

Let's start from the begiining.  Disconnect EVERYTHING, except mouse, monitor and keyboard. Reboot and look at the status of the 4 diagnostic LEDs on rear of the tower. If not all green, stop and post the code here. If all 4 are green, run BIOS setup (F2 before Windows starts to load) and make sure the Drive Controller setting is set to RAID Autodetect/ATA.  Change it to this choice, if necessary. Now make sure the boot sequence has the hard drive FIRST, not floppy or optical drive. Save the changes and exit setup. Does it boot?

If it still won't boot, there's a chance either the hard drive or motherboard failed. So next is to test that. Insert your Dell Windows XP Reinstallation CD in the top-most optical drive and close the drawer. Reboot and press F12 before Windows starts to load. Choose "Boot from CD" from the list. If it still doesn't boot, and you have 2 optical drives, put the XP CD in the other drive and try booting from the CD again. Post the results here.

Ron