Boot Quirk

FLABOB,

Open the case and reseat the connections to the hard drive. Unplug and replug them both to the hard drive and the motherboard. You should also try to boot the system to the diagnostics that came with the system to test for hard drive failure. You can find the diagnostics on the drivers and utilities CD or you can download the latest version from the Dell download site.

Probably a dying HD.  Visit the HD manufacturer website and download a utility to test the fitness of the HD.  Other suspects are bad/loose IDE HD cable or bad IDE controller.  I've seen, on occasion bad RAM, too.

F.

Also try the FIX MBR command.

F.

When you CAN boot does the HD make a lot of sounds when being accessed?  That's a good indication, along with the other symptoms, that it's on the way out.  When you get the "can't find" message is it strangely quiet?  That's how mine was when it was dying.

Next time you do get it to boot don't turn it off...and get right to backing up anything you don't want to lose.  Then do the troubleshooting.  If it is the HD you never know when the last time you'll be able to access it will be.

HTH

I thank you all for your quick replys. I will check the cable connections and get the diagnostics to perform the HD check. As to my HD, it is brand new, so it seems unlikely that it is about to fail. Still, I've backed up my personal data, just in case. The only sound I've noticed, when I have this problem, is that of the slow clicking when the boot process fails.

If you have Windows NT / 2000 / XP, you can boot from startup floppy disks or CD-ROM, choose repair option during setup, and run Recovery Console. When you are logged on, you can run FIXMBR command to fix MBR.

Also you can use third party MBR recovery software or if you've created MBR backup, restore it from there

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/home/using/productdoc/en/default.asp?url=/WINDOWSXP/home/using/productdoc/en/bootcons_fixmbr.asp

F.

FLABOB:

I belive the 4550 has the the disk diagnostics that you can acces from the boot screen. To do this as soon as the the dell logo comes up hit ctrl+alt+d at the same time if it works, it will come up with a diag screen and start testing if any thing is found it will give you an error code. Also you might want to swap connectors on the mother board, put the cdrom where the hard drive is hooked and vice versa and see if you have any problems with the cdrom.

-friendlyname-

you didnt say what operating system you are using, but here are two links that tell you how to use it:

http://www.ntfs.com/mbr-damaged.htm

http://www.cyberwalker.net/columns/sep98/090398.html

Due to some of my own boot problems, I tried the FIX MBR command from Command Prompt. It said no such command as FIX.  Could you please be more specificc as how to use it.

Thanks,

Jane

Thank you both cahallmxj and Francis, the sites were helpful.  I'll try the recovery console with FIXMBR.  I have XPPro.  The recovery console previously did not recognize any bootable drives, so that I could use bootconfig.

Thanks again,

Jane