Dimension 4400: No boot device detected

Question

First off, this system was a lemon when the users first purchased it. I personally replaced the motherboard and processor with parts dell supplied under warranty. The system is out of warranty now and having problems.

When booting, checking the memory size takes forever to begin with. After it is done, this message appears: No Boot Device Detected: System Halted

I have removed the hard drive and hooked it up in my usb enclosure and it works great. The memory is crucial and I tried a replacement stick of crucial with the same results. 1.8 Pentium 4 with whatever bios came with the replacement motheboard, 256mb crucial, stock other than that.

Is this a motherboard problem or what? Is the motherboard mini ATX or a funky Dell format?

Thanks, Jeff

fireberd · Answer

From the limited info, most Dell's of that vintage used a Dell custom motherboard, not fully ATX compatible. Same with the case, it won't accept a standard ATX motherboard without major modifications.

Did you check the hard drive to see it had data on it? or did you check to see if it's bootable? If the hard drive lost the boot sector and is not "bootable" could be why the BIOS doesn't detect a bootable device. Also Check the BIOS to make sure it still has the hard drive in it's boot sequence. You may want to update the BIOS to the latest avaialbe from Dell for that specific model.

With the apparent memory issue and the boot issue, try to take it one problem at a time. It may turn out that another device is causing the problems. Check the device strapping on the hard drive (and CD drives), most later model Dell's use the "Cable Select" strapping method instead of the old Master/Slave and if it's been changed (or has a mix) it could cause problems. I'm not sure how far back Dell has been using the Cable Select method, but the 8200 I had (1.8 G CPU) had the Cable Select method.

Message Edited by fireberd on 11-29-2004 06:35 AM

DELL-Donald K · Answer

Skippysg

Boot to the system BIOS, then go to the Boot tab

Ensure Quite Boot & Quick Boot are enabled (that should speed the memory test)

Then ensure the HDD is listed as the 1st boot device under Boot Device Priority

Save & Exit

skippysg · Answer

Hey, the hard drive did have all the data on it. I figured it out though. Her kids must have been playing in the bios and they disabled the ide controller. It's something stupid I overlooked. Thanks for the suggestions!

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Dimension 4400: No boot device detected

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