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Dell Dimension 8100 Hard Drive Change Issue
I purchased a Dell Dimension 8100 back in 2001 (BIOS Ver: XP2). Throughout the years I have replaced the hard drive with a 200 GB (Maxtor Diamond Max Plus 9) and added a secondary hard drive (160 GB - Maxtor Diamond Max Plus 9). Just recently my main drive (200 GB) went bad and I had to replace it (Western Digital 320 GB). I replaced the drive and when the machine boots up it displays the following message:
Primary Hard Disk Drive 0 Not Found
Primary Hard Disk Drive 1 Not Found
After that message it displays "Detecting..." and displays a list of my drives. It reads the first one (0) as WD & the second one (1) as Maxtor. I go into the BIOS and it reads them as Unknown Devices.
I inserted the CD that came with the WD drive and it is able to read them as Primary & Secondary fine.
Then when I insert the Windows XP Professional w/ SP3 CD it cannot find the drive.
Has anyone encountered this issue before and/or know what the resolution is for this? I am sure that I am missing something that is simple.
Also I should note that the Jumpers are setup correctly.
Warm Regards,
Joe :emotion-2:
shesagordie
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January 12th, 2009 14:00
jferranti
Try clearing the NVRAM
See HERE
Bev.
jferranti
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January 13th, 2009 10:00
Thank you for the response. I did that (for my machine I needed to remove the battery) and when the machine boots up that message no longer appears. I went into the BIOS and did the reset. Primary Drive 0 & Primary Drive 1 were reading Off. I followed the steps in the BIOS reset - Alt + F changes Primary Drive 0 to Unknown Device. I then loaded the Windows XP Professional CD and was able to get a little further in the installation process but when I get to the point where it looks for the drive I get this - There is no disk in this drive. I am going to try and update the BIOS from XP2 to A09. In the past I had an issue with version A09 reading certain peripherals so I had to downgrade it. If this does NOT work any other suggestions with be helpful.
On a side note - I went back into the BIOS and Primary Drive 0 & Primary Drive 1 are both reading Off after the BIOS reset and reboot. I changed the settings to Auto and the message appears at the beginning of the startup process. I went back in and changed the option to User 1 (Primary Drive 0) & User 2 (Primary Drive 1), rebooted the machine and that error went away however those settings are locked in and is not allowing me to change them. :emotion-6:
Update to the settings being locked. I waited a little while and went back in and then it allowed me to change the settings. Also with the BIOS I am going to need to find another machine that has a floppy drive. The other machines in my house do not have floppy drives. :emotion-6:
Thanks again
Joe :emotion-2: