With the hard drive jumpered to "cable select" and cabled properly unplug the machine and remove the motherboard battery again.  Then press the On button for several seconds to dissipate any residual electrical charge on the motherboard and re-install the battery.  Plug the machine back in and see if it will boot up this time.  This process will clear the NVRAM which is the stored hardware configuration that the BIOS uses.  It's possible that the NVRAM wasn't updated when the 2nd hard drive was removed.  With the NVRAM cleared it will have to redetect all the currently installed hardware when the machine is booted.

Message Edited by Majestic on 06-22-2004 06:23 AM

Thanks Majestic I will give that a shot when I get home.

My system worked flawlessly. My wife has an Alienware and the Seagate HD she has started to crash. I pulled a WD 80GB that was slaved off my Dell and loaded it to hers so she could copy her files and RMA the Seagate. Since my OEM Hard drive was set as primary, I should have only needed to reboot. This threw me for a loop when I could not get into the setup. Hopefully your suggestion will work.

Thanks!

Well I pulled the battery, turned on the PC and let it run for a second. I then turned the PC on again and had an error message that I had an invalid configuration. I pulled out all non essential pci controllers and rebooted and I just have the Dell logo and a loading bar that stops at about 75%. That is where it ends. I tried a bootup disk but the system cant seem to get that far. I am speechless as to what to do. I am open to all ideas at this point.

Additional information....

The Diagnostic lights are Green Green Orange Orange. Is there a better way to clear the cmos? I can't even load the utilty disk!

A the fun continues....I read where it said to remove the cables and I did not realize I was trying to remove the front panel ribbon. Are you aware that does not want to come out and tears like a sheet of paper?

I am out for tonight. Hopefully someone sells this ribbon :(

You might have to contact Dell in order to get another ribbon cable for the front control panel.  You could double check by posting in the Dimension - General Hardware forum, but I believe that ribbon cable is specific to a Dell system.

Regarding the clear of the NVRAM by means of removing the battery.... It sounds like you mis-read what I wrote.  During the clearing process you never have to turn the machine on and run it because the process is done with the machine unplugged.  You only have to press the On button to dissipate any residual electrical charge the motherboard may have while it is unplugged and the battery remove.  What you might do is unplug the machine and remove the battery while waiting for a new ribbon cable.  That way when the time comes to install the new cable the NVRAM will be definately cleared.

Message Edited by Majestic on 06-23-2004 07:47 AM

Yeah I missed what you said. I will try that if I can find a cable. I did post in the Hardware forum to see if it is proprietary.

 

Thanks for the help Majestic :)

Well it has been a valiant effort but I think my MB is shot. I replaced the cable. Fortunately Dell has a resource center close by and they just gave it to me. I had the battery out all day and the pc unplugged. While it was unplugged I turned it on. I then made sure everything was seated correctly and turned it on. I had an invalid configuration screen and was told to run setup. I rebooted and hit F2 but I just get the Dell logo with a 75% status bar and it hangs there.

Not sure what else to do!

Try stripping the system down to the bare minimum.  Leave just the processor, memory and graphics card in and remove everything else and disconnect the drives.  See if the machine will make any progress booting up this way.  Also try booting the machine with the keyboard and mouse disconnected.  It wasn't too long ago that a gentleman reported back that his machine was failing to boot due to a dead mouse so anything is possible.  If the machine will boot stripped down then slowly add a device one at a time until the problem returns.  This will indicate which device is bad.  If the machine still fails to boot then I would check out my warranty options for repair which I assume you still have on the system.

Message Edited by Majestic on 06-24-2004 07:44 AM

Thanks for the advice Majestic. I tried all those troubleshooting option earlier with the same results. I spoke to Dell last night and they tried a couple of things to no avail. They they asked me to remove the processor to reseat it which I did not want to do. I could see nothing pointing to the processor. So after I removed the processor I could not even boot up anymore. They are sending me a new motherboard and chip so I should be good to go hopefully.

Thanks again for the help.

Thanks for the update and I am glad to hear Dell is working to resolve the problem.  Sounds like you will have your system up and running in no time.  Take care!