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5879

October 22nd, 2003 17:00

BIOS not recognizing boot devices

Our DELL 8200 recently had a Windows ME blue screen of death error on bootup (unrecognized_boot_device type) and we pulled the hard drive, attached it to a second computer to try to extract any data, but the entire hard drive was corrupt.  After we reattched the cleaned (FDISKed) hard drive we were unable to boot. 

Upon going into the BIOS we found that BOOT DEVICES listed "Processor: ", "Processor :" and nothing else, not even the floppy drive, although the floppy, hard drive and CD-ROM were all recognized by the BIOS (just not as boot devices).  During bootup, we can press the F12 key to go to boot devices, but it will not boot off of any of the devices. 

Current status is one 120Mb hard drive (blank), a CD-ROM, floppy drive - none of which can boot on this system.  The DELL restore CD works on other computers so we know it is bootable.

We have tried to reset the CMOS and even pulled the battery (although I read in another thread that it may have to be pulled for 24 hrs, we did not pull it that long).  Has anyone else encountered this problem or one similar to it?

251 Posts

October 22nd, 2003 20:00

Try going into BIOS setup, and press the NUM LOCK, CAPS LOCK and SCROLL LOCK until all 3 indicator lights on the keyboard are on. Then press ALT-E (you should hear a beep) and ALT-F (another beep). Press ESC and let it save the changes. The system will restart, and it should re-scan for all devices. All BIOS settings will revert back to factory defaults.

5 Posts

December 28th, 2003 05:00

I have an inspiron 2100 and it won't boot following the setup page. I just get this blinking _ almost like a linux command line. I went into BIOS and went to boot...nothing is highlighted so I can't change the order to CD #1. It says I am in user mode even though I get in through the supervisor password. It says to consult my supervisor. Right now it is 1. Removable Devices (but won't boot from the floppy) 2. Internal Hard Drive (I have switched out the drives) 3. Atapi CD-ROM Drive (never gets there) 4. Network Boot
Help what can I do?
Kevin

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