Both your hard drive and your fixed optical drive are on the same IDE channel.
You will therefore have to reseat both the hard drive and a fixed optical drive ie you will physically have to remove the hard drive and optical drive then reinstall them.
If your hard drive has failed, the Fixed Optical Drive will not be recognized as present either. Any modular Optical drive will still be recognized and of course the Floppy if that is in the modular bay.
Also check to see if the drives are recognized in the BIOS Setup screen. If they are recognized by the BIOS, the drives are probably OK.
I believe the message displayed when either drive fails on an I8x00 is more along the lines of "Hard Drive not found. Optical Drive not found." The message you have implies a boot problem other than a failed drive, if I am not mistaken.
I have the same problem with an Inspiron 8200. At boot it does not find the hard drive or optical drive. Neither one is found in the BIOS setup. The hard drive works fine in an external hard drive case when attached to another computer, so I don't think a hard drive failure is the problem. The BIOS does recognize the floppy drive.
Are there any further diagnostic steps I can take? Do you have any other suggestions?
You may have lost some Boot files on your HDD, or developed a Bad Sector or two right in the middle of them, since you can access files from another computer. What brand drive do you have? Both IBM and later Hitachi have a Drive Fitness Test that can patch Bad Sectors and move the affected files to another area on the disk; perhaps you can recover the Boot capability. It is either that or possibly a M'Board IDE Controller Failure or a failure of the part that is on the Drive's firmware circuit board. Also, What BIOS versio does the laptop have?
Remove the fixed optical drive and see if the system boots or the BIOS recognizes the presence of the hard drive, then reinstall the optical drive and remove the hard drive to see if the BIOS recognizes the presence of the optical drive. Some failure modes of either device can cause the IDE controller to lock up, and not report the presence of either device. Failure of the IDE controller or other related motherboard components may also cause neither device to be recognized.
No attempt is made to boot from either device when they are not recognized by the BIOS.
Thanks so much for your help. I tried booting with the optical drive removed, and the computer booted just fine. I didn't know that the failure of one could affect the detection of the other.
Is there anything that can be done to daignose and fix the optical drive, or will I have to replace it?
Bueno! Not happy to see your optical drive has failed, but to see that the faulty device has been identified.
Most often an older optical drive is much more economical to replace than to repair, but the drive manufacturer may have depot service available for more recent models. The break-even point is usually when the warranty expires.
You can use any "bare" slim optical drive in the fixed bay of your Inspiron 8200, and the market is brimming with candidates from CD-ROM to DVD+-RW. Many optical drives with the special curved faceplate for the Inspiron 8x00 series fixed bay can be found on the used and NOS market, but a flat faceplate works just as well, if not quite as aesthetically pleasing.
bacillus
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June 1st, 2005 15:00
You will therefore have to reseat both the hard drive and a fixed optical drive ie you will physically have to remove the hard drive and optical drive then reinstall them.
leduke30
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June 2nd, 2005 02:00
GreyMack
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June 2nd, 2005 06:00
GM
ihate0u
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June 14th, 2005 20:00
Are there any further diagnostic steps I can take? Do you have any other suggestions?
leduke30
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June 14th, 2005 20:00
GreyMack
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June 15th, 2005 05:00
No attempt is made to boot from either device when they are not recognized by the BIOS.
ihate0u
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June 15th, 2005 11:00
Is there anything that can be done to daignose and fix the optical drive, or will I have to replace it?
GreyMack
2.2K Posts
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June 15th, 2005 20:00
Most often an older optical drive is much more economical to replace than to repair, but the drive manufacturer may have depot service available for more recent models. The break-even point is usually when the warranty expires.
You can use any "bare" slim optical drive in the fixed bay of your Inspiron 8200, and the market is brimming with candidates from CD-ROM to DVD+-RW. Many optical drives with the special curved faceplate for the Inspiron 8x00 series fixed bay can be found on the used and NOS market, but a flat faceplate works just as well, if not quite as aesthetically pleasing.
GM