While your topic probably belongs in the hard drive forum, maybe you could start by posting what drives you have. Are you getting a message that the system cannot find your boot drive? Have you tried resetting NVRAM? Have you checked the SATA cable and power connections to both drives?
Reformatting is not the way to solve this, since the problem is at a very basic (BIOS) level, not at the software level.
Hi:OSPREY4
I have a Dell 4700 and sometimes when it boots it can not find the SATA drives and or Boot Drive and it sez to hit f2 to continue then it goes into the Bios but the drives show up in the Bios as ON, so what do I do. I reformat the drives and reinstall XP all over again it works for about a couple of months and then I do this all over again. I have done this about four to five times in a year and a half. I have two seagate SATA drives 160gb and a 80gb drive and I have also tried clearing the NVRAM still the same results right now I have SATA 1 shut off in the BIOS but even with the second Drive shut off I still get this problem at time it's not right away. I'm really tried of doing this, I'm at my wits end what to do Help!!!!
I would check the connections (you didn't mention whether you have). Then you might consider replacing the cables. If this is always happening with the same OS drive, you may have a bad drive.
@osprey4 wrote:
I would check the connections (you didn't mention whether you have). Then you might consider replacing the cables. If this is always happening with the same OS drive, you may have a bad drive.
Hi Osprey I did as you said to switch out the SATA Cables all seems to be fine with the 4700 everything is booting up like it should both HD's no problem. I went one step further and switched out the power supply with the one from my Dell 8400, I stepped it up to a 350watt PSU so far so good and I took the 6800GTo card from the 8400 and placed it in the 4700 again so far so good lets keep our fingers crossed. I'll keep you posted
osprey4
4 Operator
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34.2K Posts
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May 13th, 2006 11:00
While your topic probably belongs in the hard drive forum, maybe you could start by posting what drives you have. Are you getting a message that the system cannot find your boot drive? Have you tried resetting NVRAM? Have you checked the SATA cable and power connections to both drives?
Reformatting is not the way to solve this, since the problem is at a very basic (BIOS) level, not at the software level.
docj170
10 Posts
0
May 15th, 2006 07:00
I have a Dell 4700 and sometimes when it boots it can not find the SATA drives and or Boot Drive and it sez to hit f2 to continue then it goes into the Bios but the drives show up in the Bios as ON, so what do I do. I reformat the drives and reinstall XP all over again it works for about a couple of months and then I do this all over again. I have done this about four to five times in a year and a half. I have two seagate SATA drives 160gb and a 80gb drive and I have also tried clearing the NVRAM still the same results right now I have SATA 1 shut off in the BIOS but even with the second Drive shut off I still get this problem at time it's not right away. I'm really tried of doing this, I'm at my wits end what to do Help!!!!
osprey4
4 Operator
•
34.2K Posts
0
May 15th, 2006 11:00
docj170
10 Posts
0
May 15th, 2006 18:00
docj170
10 Posts
0
June 7th, 2006 14:00
Hi Osprey I did as you said to switch out the SATA Cables all seems to be fine with the 4700 everything is booting up like it should both HD's no problem. I went one step further and switched out the power supply with the one from my Dell 8400, I stepped it up to a 350watt PSU so far so good and I took the 6800GTo card from the 8400 and placed it in the 4700 again so far so good lets keep our fingers crossed. I'll keep you posted