Help! Inspiron 4000, replacing dead hard drive and booting off the XP CD

Question

Hi There, The hard drive on my Inspiron 4000 died (asqueelin' and a clickin' ). I changed the boot order to CD/DVD in the setup utility yet the laptop would not/could not boot off the XP install disc ('no bootable devices' message). Pressing the eject button failed to eject the XP CD and I had to manually eject it with a paper clip. I then installed a new $39.00 hard drive getting the message 'No boot sector on Hard Disk' and tried again to see if I could boot of the XP CD. I did this because I thought maybe there needed to be a working hard drive in order to boot of the XP CD but I guess I was wrong. My question is: Why can't I boot of the XP CD. Is there a connection between the CD player and some software (drivers?) that lived on the old hard drive, and since the new hard drive wasn't formatted the CD player won't work? Or did my CD player coincidentally die at the same time as the Hard Drive? Any thoughts. Thanks!! Greg

ejn63 · Answer

When you installed the replacement drive, did you put the blade adapter on from the original drive on it? Does the BIOS see both drives?

gjconker · Answer

@ejn63 wrote:
When you installed the replacement drive, did you put the blade adapter on from the original drive on it?

Does the BIOS see both drives?

Thanks for Writing Back,

Yes, the pins seemed exactly the same so I put the adapter on and stuck the hard drive in. Page 1 of the Bios shows:

Primary Hard Drive: 400062
Diskette Drive A: Not Installed
Diskette Drive B: Not Installed
Modular Bay: DVD ROM

Does the above mean that my computer is "seeing" these drives? The XP CD is a bootable drive, no? Should I boot off floppys and then install off the CD? (I don't know how to do that)

Boot Order (Page 2) is:

CD/DVD/CD-RW Drive
Internal HDD
Diskette Drive

Thanks,

Greg

leduke30 · Answer

Your set up is correct and when you try to boot from the XP CD, you should get a brief prompt to "press any key to boot from the CD". It will not boot without that.

Message Edited by leduke30 on 07-20-2007 08:48 PM

gjconker · Answer

@leduke30 wrote:

Your set up is correct and when you try to boot from the XP CD, you should get a brief prompt to "press any key to boot from the CD". It will not boot without that.

Message Edited by leduke30 on 07-20-2007 08:48 PM

Nope, not getting that prompt. "I get No bootable devices--strike F1 for setup utility" When I insert the floppy drive into the modular bay it does show "Diskette Drive" so it's getting power. Maybe it's recognizing the "modular bay" (CD player) but there's something wrong with the CD Player? I do believe the CD player was working fine before the HD crash!! Should I try booting from floppies? (of which I have non!) Thanks again.

Greg

leduke30 · Answer

It is possible the CD drive is disabled in BIOS, in which event it will not boot even if first in the boot order. Look at the left end of the line entry in the boot order on Pg.#2 and see if there is an arrowhead there; if not, it is disabled. To enable it, highlight it with the arrow keys and press the Space Bar on the keyboard. You can also try the F12 One Time Boot order. The CD drive is not in the Primary IDE Channel slaved to the HDD as it is on some Dells, so that should not be affecting the CD Drive

jec4312 · Answer

when I had a I 4000 and a hard drive problem, I had to FDISK and format before using the recovery CD and driver CD (I only had a CD ROM drive, no DVD). Thought I would throw in this thought in case it is of use.

gjconker · Answer

@leduke30 wrote:

It is possible the CD drive is disabled in BIOS, in which event it will not boot even if first in the boot order. Look at the left end of the line entry in the boot order on Pg.#2 and see if there is an arrowhead there; if not, it is disabled. To enable it, highlight it with the arrow keys and press the Space Bar on the keyboard. You can also try the F12 One Time Boot order. The CD drive is not in the Primary IDE Channel slaved to the HDD as it is on some Dells, so that should not be affecting the CD Drive

I have the CD drive enabled (shows arrowhead). I tried F12, no go.

@jec4312 wrote:
when I had a I 4000 and a hard drive problem, I had to FDISK and format before using the recovery CD and driver CD (I only had a CD ROM drive, no DVD). Thought I would throw in this thought in case it is of use.

I tried to see if I could get Inspiron 4000 to read a floppy disk, hoping to try the FDISK idea. I bought some brand new floppies, formatted a boot disk and tried to boot off the floppy drive in the modular bay (inserted in place of the CD drive). Now I'm getting "Disk I/O error, Replace the disk and strike any key". Tried another disk, same problem. Is it possible that other parts of the laptop failed at the same time the HD failed? What next? Maybe format the new HD on a different computer? Thanks!

Greg

Message Edited by gjconker on 07-21-2007 01:06 PM

leduke30 · Answer

Since both the Floppy and CD Drive are affected, and after all the remedies you have tried, it sounds as if you have had a failure on the board. Boards for this model also are used in the C600 and are running cheap on Ebay. The best one is a D P/N 01D197 which will support a 1ghz CPU.

gjconker · Answer

@leduke30 wrote:

Since both the Floppy and CD Drive are affected, and after all the remedies you have tried, it sounds as if you have had a failure on the board. Boards for this model also are used in the C600 and are running cheap on Ebay. The best one is a D P/N 01D197 which will support a 1ghz CPU.

Thanks All for the help.

Per leduke30's advice I bought a new motherboard for $30 (including shipping). I'll post back the results assuming I can get this thing up and running. Thanks again!

Greg

gjconker · Answer

Ack! Still not working!

I replaced the motheboard and the Laptop seems to power up and the screen works, etc. but I still can't boot.

To Review: Bios shows my new 40 Gig HD, DVD ROM in the Modular Bay, Diskette drive in the parelell port, the right amount of memory, etc. Still, the CD/DVD won't spin up and I keep getting I/O errors with the floppy drive so I can't boot from a floppy.

Is it possible that the CD/ROM drive and the floppy drive failed at the same time and that it wasn't the motherboard after all? What next?

Thanks,

Greg

@gjconker wrote:

@leduke30 wrote:

Since both the Floppy and CD Drive are affected, and after all the remedies you have tried, it sounds as if you have had a failure on the board. Boards for this model also are used in the C600 and are running cheap on Ebay. The best one is a D P/N 01D197 which will support a 1ghz CPU.

Thanks All for the help.

Per leduke30's advice I bought a new motherboard for $30 (including shipping). I'll post back the results assuming I can get this thing up and running. Thanks again!

Greg

Ac

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