Dimension 8200 boot sequence after installing a new hard drive

You should not need to re-install Windows Me to get to Windows XP.  Try booting directly from the Windows XP CD.  At some point before actual installation, the setup program should ask you to insert your qualifying media into the CD ROM drive.  Eject the Windows XP CD at that point, put the Windows Me CD into the drive, close it and indicate "OK" if necessary.  When setup is satisfied you have the correct pre-requisite, it will tell you to eject the Windows Me CD and put the Windows XP CD into the drive.  You should be able to continue the installation from that point.

Make sure you remember to set your drives back to Cable Select if you have not already done so.

JackShack:  Thank you for the advice about the ME / XP reinstallation.  First, I have to clear the obstacle of being able to boot from CD.  Here is where I am stuck currently:

"I wanted to boot from the CD to restore to Windows ME and then re-perform the upgrade to go to Windows XP.  The CD would not show up in the boot sequence.  Please note that the BIOS shows "Primary Drive 0" = "Hard Drive" (and the details indicate the new drive, "Detect" and "320 GB"), and "Secondary Drive" = "CD-ROM Reader" (and the details show, "Detect").  Both the hard drive and the CD have the correct model name listed. 

Now when I turn the power on, I receive the message "No boot device available - strike F1 to retry boot, F2 for setup utility".  The only items in the boot sequence is four separate listings for "Processor".  If I enable one of them, then I can go to the BIOS, but no further." 

The last two parts of the post were the troubleshooting I attempted:

"I read through as many posts as possible.  I don't believe that the motherboard is bad, because I received no indication (in the form of the 4 "Processor" listings in the boot sequence) prior to putting in the new hard drive.  I don't believe that the hard drive is bad, because it is listed in the BIOS correctly (and this would seem to indicate that the BIOS battery is good, as well as the cable itself). 

I am not able to boot directly to the CD by pressing the F12 when the Dell splash screen displays.  I tried moving the jumper to change the setting from "cable select" to "master" to "slave" to "single" (where no jumper is installed).  I also tried to reset the BIOS settings to default, but was not able to do so after going through the instructions on the Dell posts. "

Is there another way to boot from CD without specifying as such in the "Boot Sequence"?  Is there some way to re-specify the CD-ROM in the "Boot Sequence"?

You should also be able to set the optical drive as the first device in the boot order menu in setup (F2 at the dell screen after restarting the computer).

If you have two optical drives, you should try the second one also.  IDE channels only support booting from the master device.  If switching drives hasn't helped, you should try resetting NVRAM.  You can do this by disconnecting all power and removing the lithium back-up cell for about a minute.  Put the back-up cell back in its holder the same orientation as when you removed it, reconnect power, and again, try each optical drive.

I appreciate the suggestion.

I removed the CR2032 battery for about a minute and restarted the computer.  I had to re-enter the time and date, but when I went into the "Boot Sequence" it still only shows the 4 "Processor" entries.

I also F2'd at the Dell screen after restarting the computer, but it had the same result with the 4 "Processor" entries.  Is there any way to add the "CD-ROM Reader" into the boot sequence?

I only have one optical drive.  There is also the 3.5" floppy and the hard drive connected, but I don't have anything else connected.  I'm going to go out and buy a brand new battery and a new 40-pin cable to see if that should help (although all of the drives are recognized in the setup menu -- just not in the boot sequence).  Do you have any other suggestions? 

Although you say that setup reports the drive properly, I would disconnect it anyway to see if there is a difference in the boot sequence.  I don't have an 8200 to look at, so I can't evaluate the screens you are seeing.  There should be some way to alter the items in the boot order menu.  Have you made sure that the port that the drive is on has been enabled?  You should have an entry on the primary IDE port 0 stating the model of the drive and this should be set to Auto, as should the entry for secondary IDE port 0.

If you disconnect the drive and the port is set properly you should get an error stating that Drive 0 on the primary IDE can not be found.

JackShack:

      Thank you again for helping me to troubleshoot.

      I disconnected both the 40-pin and the power from the Western Digital (WD) hard drive (HD).  In the setup menu the "Primary Drive 0" now reads as "OFF" and has no drive detail.  The boot sequence no has 3 "Processor" entries (before disconnecting the drive it had 4 instances). 

      Before I unplugged the HD everything was as you wrote, the "Primary Drive 0" was "ON" and reported that the WD HD was 250 GB & the "Secondary Drive 0" was "ON" and shows as the "CD-ROM Reader" (which it still does as I did not disconnect it). 

      I read in someone else's post in the Dell Community that you can boot directly from the CD-ROM with a Dell 8200 by pressing the F12 key at the Dell logo (i.e. splash screen); however, I was not able to do this.  I agree with your comment about "There should be some way to alter the items in the boot order menu" and have searched postings for this information to no avail. 

      In my initial post I had mentioned that I don't believe the mother board is bad (as was suggested by some of my research) even though the "Processor" appears in the "Boot Sequence".  "Processor" wasn't there before I installed the new HD, but only appeared after the installation (and the CD-ROM and floppy were removed as possible devices from which to boot).

While the drive is still unplugged, disconnect all power and remove the NVRAM cell and leave it that way for at least overnight.  I have seen some strange things on what is supposed to be a logical device, but I have never seen a setup that contains only entries for a "Processor".  I don't believe I have ever seen one that had "Processor" as a possible boot device.  There must be some way to change this to report the actual boot devices, or I would be forced to conclude that the main board is toast.

Do you by chance have any bootable PCI cards in this mix?  Or for that matter, do you have any USB or other peripherals that might have storage devices?  There should be absolutely nothing connected to the computer during this process, and if you have any PCI cards installed, you should probably remove them as well (except for a display adapter, of course).

Excellent work!  I'm happy to learn that everything has worked out ok, and I learned something in the process as well.  I had not heard of the "ALT_F" before!

Good luck to you!