I have the same problem as sotsp in that the first thing that comes on turning on the computer is HD & Optical Drive not found. I thought it was the hard drive and Dell tech said it was this also. I am concerned it could be the main board and I might be buying a new one when a mother board is needed? I can not run diagnostics when this message comes up the diagnostics stops when it starts with the HD. If it boots then it shows nothing wrong. It will boot for two weeks then not boot for two weeks you never know when it will work or not. I have tried to reseat HD & remove Optical Drive to no avail. In short why did you pick main board failure instead of Hard Drive as being the problem?
Reseating both fixed and optical drives, nor booting w/o optical drive will not fix this problem. I too, w/ Inspiron 4000 will hear loud snapping noise from HDD after about 1 hour of operation. This is a 20gb IBM Travelstar. System then locks up tight as a drum, may BSOD, restart will give me HDD not found. Allow an hour or so, it may work again, then the process repeats itself. IMHO, I think it is heat stress to motherboard causing comm failure to HDD. I am of the opinion, replacing the HDD may not solve this problem.
I had the same problem! Both reseating and flashing the BIOS don't work, and Dell sales is asking $599 for a new motherboard and $449 for installation!
This problem is related to the optical drive, try to take out the fixed drive (side one), then power on the computer, then if it boot up that mean is the cdrom damage, if in case says something like fixed optical drive not found then HDD not found could be both of them.
I just had the same problem with my 8200 which is also out of warranty. Don't waste your time calling Dell which a spend two days on the phone to. They even tried to sell me a new warranty saying it would cover the hard drive, but when i asked for this in writing(e-mail) they refused, what a joke dell are becoming.
The problem seems to be the hard drive I've had my old one ghosted to a new HDD and it is now working fine.
If your in the UK and near Swansea it will cost you about £135 to get fixed.
Hey all. Another dimension to the mystery of the missing hdd -
When I removed the optical disk again, as per the instructions on a thread on this board, I get an 'invalid configuration, please run setup' message. The hard drive will click loudly, and then I get the same 'no bootable devices found'. What the heck is going on?!
ok everyone..heres the real deal. I have a couple of Inspiron 8100's that I have experienced the same problems with. If you run the diognostic tool as the dell screen shows up at first power up it usually detects the hard drive and then when you restart it will boot. I do say usually. Then as long as I leave the computer pluged in and don't move it, it continues to boot over and over. as soon as I unplug it..it's starting all over. As the problem continues to go on the system will now not even work on battery power, even if I first boot and then unplug the power cable. It has continued to get worse and worse over time. Now let me let you into the fix I stumbled onto today!!!!. In one system I pulled the whole thing apart and replaced the battery on the mainboard..this fixed the problem. On the other I had to replace the power supply. The power supply had become fault and was not proving the power required to the devices or the IDE controller.
As for Dell...I used to work in phone support for dell until about 2 years ago when the company began to quickly decline. I then left to start my own technology company and at this day and age would not recomend to anyone I know to buy a computer form Dell. The once leader has become a well of non-knowlageable support. this is a sahme since their current computers need more help than anything they have ever made. As for me..as soon as I got the systems working today I posted them for sale and bought a brand new 17" HP..It is amazing!
Bpalmer, did you mean the CMOS battery -
http://www.parts-people.com/index.php?action=item&id=232&prevaction=category&previd=2&prevstart=12
This happened to me a week ago too, I turned my notebook off and next morning it started just fine. Downloaded I8Kfangui, by the way noticed that HDD temperature never went below 45-46'C. I tried to force maximum fan speed and the HDD temperature dropped a little to 43'C. But at 9600 rpm the fan noise was unbearable so I had to switch I8Kfangui back to automatic temperature control.
Man it is usually hot in Toronto in summer and I think it was the heat that finally killed my Inspiron. We do have a central air conditioning in our condo, but it did not work yesterday, so the issue occured again. To wait overnight did not help at all. Also, I noticed that some people reported the problem recently, so it might be high temperature that caused it.
First I blamed it on the mean IBM/Hitachi Travelstar. I thought, "Oh well, it's not a very good news but still I can get a new HDD". But after reading numerous posts related to the problem I am afraid that getting a new HDD or motherboard won't help. And it is really frustrating.
Just would like confirm that it was CMOS battery, not the laptop battery that you meant.
Would really appreciate your answer.
Inspiron 8200 (got in May, 2002 with 1 year warranty)
CPU 1.4GHz
RAM 1Gb
HDD IBM Travelstar 30GB
Nvidia GeForce 32MB
CD-ROM/DVD combo
LCD SVGA+
Ok, where exactly is the CMOSS battery? The computer tech I'm working with can't find it! He's relatively inexperienced with laptops, so that might be the problem. We're -still- trying to figure out how to fix my comp .
Another question - if it is just the motherboard or the battery, could I just stick my HDD into another dell laptop and retrieve some of my files? If so, what other laptops could I use? My friend has a dell comp, but I'm not sure which model. Does an Insp 8200 HDD only work with other Insp 8200s? Any help would be appreciated.
I can't say for sure, but your hard drive is probably a "standard" 2.5" hard drive, and should go into any number of other laptops. I might suggest you do this prior to spending any money on repairs. The 8100 I was working on had very misleading symptoms, and after sending the drive off for data retreival, I found out that the drive was failing is such a way as to cause the motherboard to not see any drives at all. I was also told that the IBM/Hitachi drives that Dell is currently using in many of their laptops are notorious for failing. I replaced the drive with a seagate, $110 USD for 20 GB, and the machine is running fine.
ejn63
9 Legend
•
87.5K Posts
0
July 8th, 2004 21:00
See if the Dell diagnostics shows up any issue (boot the CD and test the system).
If neither drive shows up, you're probably facing a replacement mainboard - and a big repair bill.
tony5050fish
1 Message
0
July 8th, 2004 21:00
Aloha,
I have the same problem as sotsp in that the first thing that comes on turning on the computer is HD & Optical Drive not found. I thought it was the hard drive and Dell tech said it was this also. I am concerned it could be the main board and I might be buying a new one when a mother board is needed? I can not run diagnostics when this message comes up the diagnostics stops when it starts with the HD. If it boots then it shows nothing wrong. It will boot for two weeks then not boot for two weeks you never know when it will work or not. I have tried to reseat HD & remove Optical Drive to no avail. In short why did you pick main board failure instead of Hard Drive as being the problem?
Cheers, Tony
sotosp
3 Posts
0
July 8th, 2004 22:00
Thanks for the responses, however, how am I to boot to the Diagnostics CD when it doesn't find the CD (Fixed Optical)drive??
Confused in Cukamunga
ejn63
9 Legend
•
87.5K Posts
0
July 8th, 2004 23:00
If you can't get the BIOS to recognize the drives at all, and you've reseated them, a hardware repair is in order - likely a new system (main) board.
marcah
4 Posts
0
July 10th, 2004 02:00
apolly0n
12 Posts
0
July 10th, 2004 20:00
rapco
2 Intern
•
399 Posts
0
July 10th, 2004 21:00
Guys,
This problem is related to the optical drive, try to take out the fixed drive (side one), then power on the computer, then if it boot up that mean is the cdrom damage, if in case says something like fixed optical drive not found then HDD not found could be both of them.
Thanks,
Rapco.
Carisbrook
9 Posts
0
July 12th, 2004 07:00
I just had the same problem with my 8200 which is also out of warranty. Don't waste your time calling Dell which a spend two days on the phone to. They even tried to sell me a new warranty saying it would cover the hard drive, but when i asked for this in writing(e-mail) they refused, what a joke dell are becoming.
The problem seems to be the hard drive I've had my old one ghosted to a new HDD and it is now working fine.
If your in the UK and near Swansea it will cost you about £135 to get fixed.
Hope this helps
Carisbrook
apolly0n
12 Posts
0
July 12th, 2004 22:00
(posted on a similar thread)
Hey all. Another dimension to the mystery of the missing hdd -
When I removed the optical disk again, as per the instructions on a thread on this board, I get an 'invalid configuration, please run setup' message. The hard drive will click loudly, and then I get the same 'no bootable devices found'. What the heck is going on?!
bpalmer2003
1 Message
0
July 16th, 2004 23:00
ok everyone..heres the real deal. I have a couple of Inspiron 8100's that I have experienced the same problems with. If you run the diognostic tool as the dell screen shows up at first power up it usually detects the hard drive and then when you restart it will boot. I do say usually. Then as long as I leave the computer pluged in and don't move it, it continues to boot over and over. as soon as I unplug it..it's starting all over. As the problem continues to go on the system will now not even work on battery power, even if I first boot and then unplug the power cable. It has continued to get worse and worse over time. Now let me let you into the fix I stumbled onto today!!!!. In one system I pulled the whole thing apart and replaced the battery on the mainboard..this fixed the problem. On the other I had to replace the power supply. The power supply had become fault and was not proving the power required to the devices or the IDE controller.
As for Dell...I used to work in phone support for dell until about 2 years ago when the company began to quickly decline. I then left to start my own technology company and at this day and age would not recomend to anyone I know to buy a computer form Dell. The once leader has become a well of non-knowlageable support. this is a sahme since their current computers need more help than anything they have ever made. As for me..as soon as I got the systems working today I posted them for sale and bought a brand new 17" HP..It is amazing!
maple_leaf
7 Posts
0
July 23rd, 2004 05:00
http://www.parts-people.com/index.php?action=item&id=232&prevaction=category&previd=2&prevstart=12
This happened to me a week ago too, I turned my notebook off and next morning it started just fine. Downloaded I8Kfangui, by the way noticed that HDD temperature never went below 45-46'C. I tried to force maximum fan speed and the HDD temperature dropped a little to 43'C. But at 9600 rpm the fan noise was unbearable so I had to switch I8Kfangui back to automatic temperature control.
Man it is usually hot in Toronto in summer and I think it was the heat that finally killed my Inspiron. We do have a central air conditioning in our condo, but it did not work yesterday, so the issue occured again. To wait overnight did not help at all. Also, I noticed that some people reported the problem recently, so it might be high temperature that caused it.
First I blamed it on the mean IBM/Hitachi Travelstar. I thought, "Oh well, it's not a very good news but still I can get a new HDD". But after reading numerous posts related to the problem I am afraid that getting a new HDD or motherboard won't help. And it is really frustrating.
Just would like confirm that it was CMOS battery, not the laptop battery that you meant.
Would really appreciate your answer.
Inspiron 8200 (got in May, 2002 with 1 year warranty)
CPU 1.4GHz
RAM 1Gb
HDD IBM Travelstar 30GB
Nvidia GeForce 32MB
CD-ROM/DVD combo
LCD SVGA+
Carisbrook
9 Posts
0
July 23rd, 2004 07:00
Hi all,
can some one tell me what I8Kfangui is. I realise it controls the fan temp, but is it already in my 8200 or do i have to install it?
Phew so many questions for a Friday.
Thanks for your help in advance.
Carisbrook
maple_leaf
7 Posts
0
July 23rd, 2004 14:00
You do not have to install it, but chances are your notebook will last longer if you install it.
apolly0n
12 Posts
0
July 27th, 2004 00:00
Ok, where exactly is the CMOSS battery? The computer tech I'm working with can't find it! He's relatively inexperienced with laptops, so that might be the problem. We're -still- trying to figure out how to fix my comp .
Another question - if it is just the motherboard or the battery, could I just stick my HDD into another dell laptop and retrieve some of my files? If so, what other laptops could I use? My friend has a dell comp, but I'm not sure which model. Does an Insp 8200 HDD only work with other Insp 8200s? Any help would be appreciated.
sotosp
3 Posts
0
July 27th, 2004 01:00
apollyOn
I can't say for sure, but your hard drive is probably a "standard" 2.5" hard drive, and should go into any number of other laptops. I might suggest you do this prior to spending any money on repairs. The 8100 I was working on had very misleading symptoms, and after sending the drive off for data retreival, I found out that the drive was failing is such a way as to cause the motherboard to not see any drives at all. I was also told that the IBM/Hitachi drives that Dell is currently using in many of their laptops are notorious for failing. I replaced the drive with a seagate, $110 USD for 20 GB, and the machine is running fine.
Hope this helps.