It sounds very much like your drive is on its last legs. You should run the Dell Diagnostics on this drive. I suggest you back up what you need and start shopping for a new drive.
Regarding the boot sequence, based on a possible problem with the hard drive, I suggest making the hard drive first, then floppy second, and keep a boot disk in the drive.
Thanks but I have no way to access the hard drive to test it.
As I mentioned both the hard drive and the CD drive disappeared from the setup (F2) menu and I can't get them back. I can boot from the A: drive using a floppy but it doesn't allow me to do anything as any reference to C: (hard drive) is deflected with an "invalid drive" error message.
What bugs me is I was one moment I was able to boot from the CD and run CHKDSK to "repair" the corrupted SYSTEM file and after reodering the boot sequence to allow me to once again boot from the hard drive BOTH the hard drive and CD have disappeared from setup.
I agree that it appears the hard drive has crashed but how do I test or even recover from that if setup denies its existence?
I also have a Dimension 8100 that would not boot. I called for months before it stopped booting asking for help. Dell ran diagonostics and informed my that my computer was fine. Since it was my third Dell I trusted Dell. I called a tech to come to my home but alas my hard drive crashed several days after being assured by Dell that my hard drive was fine. This was preventable and must be a known problem because I have seen too many entires in other forums since my hard drive crashed about Dimension 8100. I would so have appreciated what the moderator has said here - if anyone had said you are on your last legs to me I would have run to a tech and had the whole hard drive backed up - something I could not do in less than five or six hours on my own.
I lost client files and may be sued because of Dell techs relunctant to service my computer under warranty at the time. This being my third Dell computer purchase with five peripherals I did not think they would string me along.
osprey4
4 Operator
•
34.2K Posts
0
January 27th, 2004 21:00
It sounds very much like your drive is on its last legs. You should run the Dell Diagnostics on this drive. I suggest you back up what you need and start shopping for a new drive.
Regarding the boot sequence, based on a possible problem with the hard drive, I suggest making the hard drive first, then floppy second, and keep a boot disk in the drive.
McCork
8 Posts
0
January 29th, 2004 14:00
Hi Osprey
Thanks but I have no way to access the hard drive to test it.
As I mentioned both the hard drive and the CD drive disappeared from the setup (F2) menu and I can't get them back. I can boot from the A: drive using a floppy but it doesn't allow me to do anything as any reference to C: (hard drive) is deflected with an "invalid drive" error message.
What bugs me is I was one moment I was able to boot from the CD and run CHKDSK to "repair" the corrupted SYSTEM file and after reodering the boot sequence to allow me to once again boot from the hard drive BOTH the hard drive and CD have disappeared from setup.
I agree that it appears the hard drive has crashed but how do I test or even recover from that if setup denies its existence?
Thanks.
Stu
Pepperlkk
20 Posts
0
March 22nd, 2004 21:00
Hello,
I also have a Dimension 8100 that would not boot. I called for months before it stopped booting asking for help. Dell ran diagonostics and informed my that my computer was fine. Since it was my third Dell I trusted Dell. I called a tech to come to my home but alas my hard drive crashed several days after being assured by Dell that my hard drive was fine. This was preventable and must be a known problem because I have seen too many entires in other forums since my hard drive crashed about Dimension 8100. I would so have appreciated what the moderator has said here - if anyone had said you are on your last legs to me I would have run to a tech and had the whole hard drive backed up - something I could not do in less than five or six hours on my own.
I lost client files and may be sued because of Dell techs relunctant to service my computer under warranty at the time. This being my third Dell computer purchase with five peripherals I did not think they would string me along.
Good Luck.
Pepperlkk
20 Posts
0
April 8th, 2004 20:00