Test the drive with the Dell diagnostics - intermittent operation can indicate pending failure.

Read this and maybe try.

After looking at my problem real close, in my opinion, I am beginning to suspect that the connectors and/or the ribbon in the media bay carrier (holder) has gone south. Several reasons for me thinking this is my problem are:

(1) I can put the floppy disk drive into the media bay and it is reconized and I can read text files off of a floppy disk. It is also identified in the BIOS.

(2) I can move my battery over to the media bay and it is reconized in the BIOS

(3) None of the (3) Hard disk drives are reconized when put into the media bay. not in the BIOS, device manager, windows explorer or in disk management.

Note: All (3) of the Hard drives are recognized and works perfect in the Primary ‘C:’ bay.

 

I received my new media bay carrier late yesterday evening and mounted one of my spare 40 GB HD's in it. Inserted the carrier into the media bay slot, started up the machine and it identified the media bay hard drive. I then restarted my machine, went into the BIOS setup, activated the media bay drive as the boot drive and booted to the media bay drive (Ewith no problems/errors. Therefore it was the connector's/ribbon in the carrier that was bad.

Thank goodness I did not receive the shipping box that the Dell Techs in India promised to have airborne deliver to me this past Monday (Nov. 15th.). If I had received that shipping box there is no telling what they might have done to my machine or how long I would have been without it.

 

The media bay cannot be recognized from the beginning at the BIOS. I get a message that the device cannot be identified.

If I removed it then the winXP Sp2 works ok.

I checked the hd and it works ok because I put it in the fixed position and I formatted it.

My last chance is the jumpers but I am afraid that nothing can be done because before the failure the media bay worked fine (without jumpers).

Any ideas? I am desperate because I have done everything with no success.

Hi,

   When you say that before the failure, the media bay worked fine without the jumpers, exactly what are you talking about ?

   The only thing in the media bay holder besides the hard drive and screws is the ribbon with connectors on each end. One connector goes to the hard drive and the other sticks out the media bay holder and connects inside the media bay slot when the assembly is inserted into the laptop.

Joe.

Yes, the media bay worked fine when I purchased it for about one month and with no jumpers.

Suddenly one day it couldn't be recognized from the BIOS during the book.
A message "The device in the media bay cannot be identified...." was appeared. Since then I cannot make this media bay work.

I read a lot of threads here in the forum. I put temporalily the disk in the fixed bay in order to format it and make the partition again and check if the disk was healthy.
The disk was ok.

After that I put it again inside the media bay (following the instructions and connect it correctly) and tried to restart the lap but again with no success.

Of course if I remove the media bay the lap starts ok, even if with the floppy drive the lap works ok. That means that the connectors of the laptop works ok otherwise the floppy wouldn't work.

What I have to do now????

When you put the floppy in the media bay slot and it worked that means the connector inside the slot is ok.

When you formatted the hard drive after putting it in the primary 'C' slot that means the hard drive is ok.

so, the connectors or the ribbon inside the media bay carrier (not inside the media bay slot) is more than likely bad.

Go to this site and look at the sixth item (Inspiron I-8000 I-8100 I8200 2nd hard drive module for $42.00)

The assembly come with the carrier case, screws, and ribbon connectors (No hard drive)

http://www.parts-people.com/index.php?action=category&id=2

Joe.

Thanks I saw it.

But again...I bought it one month ago and now it doesn't work!!!!
...and I have to pay $42 more...

Till now 2 media bays are faulty...I don't invest more money on this.

I think I will go to add an external firewire case for the hd..

What I have to do now ?

Seems like you have wasted my time.You had your mind made up all the time. If you had (2) media bays go faulty on you in a month's time, where are your warranties ??

Where did you get the (2) faulty media bays ??

lol.

Why you say that?

I have a problem and you tried to help me, and you did it...and I thank you for that.

However I have to say that the first media bay lasted 1,5 year and the second only 1 month. Both were bought from e-bay.

Thanks again.