Attachment uploads are currently disabled. This is a temporary situation and will resume as normal in the coming days.
UNSOLVED
I
INTERNET2000
2 Intern
•
496 Posts
0
12151
July 14th, 2006 04:00
Please Help...System Does Not Boot (Long Read)
I reformatted my hard drive a couple of days ago. I noticed while I was looking around the back of the computer many of the vent holes were plugged with dust. I figured that I would take the computer and blow some compressed air in it and clean it up a little bit...That was a mistake! :smileyindifferent:
Dimension 4300S - Windows XP Home Edition (SP2)
1.7 GHZ / 512 MB - SDRAM / 60 GB Hard Drive
I put everything back together and hooked it all up correctly. I pressed the power button and the system froze on the Dell Splashscreen. The diagnostic lights displayed amber on "A" & "D" and green on "B" & "C" indicating an IDE Failure. In the "System Setup" (within the bios settings) it reads "Unknown Device" for all IDE connected drives (CD-RW & Hard Drive). I tried clearing the NVRAM and that didn't do any good. I thought that resetting the default settings in the "System Setup" utility would solve the problem. Sadly, that was not the solution.
I reset the system setup settings and it performed an "Automatic IDE Configuration" followed by a message that displayed "Strike F1 to reboot, F2 to enter system setup." Choosing F1 doesn't do anything other than continuing to display the same message over and over again.
When I am on the Dell splash screen the diagnostic lights displayed amber on "A" & "D" and green on "B" & "C." If I am on a black screen (Giving me the choice of F1/F2 or "Automatic IDE Configuration) the diagnostics lights display "D" in amber while "A" / "B" / "C" remain green.
occasionally the bios will recognize a hard drive and cd-rom drive attached to the computer as it should running normally; shortly after, I receive an error message after the Dell splash screen that states "No Boot Device Detected - F1 Retry / F2 Reboot."
I don't know how hot the hard drive is supposed to get, but at one point the hard drive got so warm that I couldn't touch it. Thinking that it was the hard drive I tried a different hard drive with an operating system on with the correct jumper settings and still I reach the same problem. I have swapped drives between computers not making any progress. I have a hunch that there is still a IDE Failure causing the hardware not to be recognized or operate properly.
I have also received the following error messages in my stressful journey:
Alert! Previous attempts at booting this system have failed at checkpoint [VMGR]. Please contact Dell technical support.
Alert! Previous attempts at booting this system have failed at checkpoint [0ops]. Please contact Dell technical support.
I have been on the phone for hours with Dell trying to reach a resolution and have not gotten anywhere. I have removed and reinstalled every piece of hardware in this system including the motherboard. I don't know what the problem is or where to go from here to get it resolved.
I'm extremely tired and hope this makes a little sense...Any help you could offer would be greatly appreciated...I thank you for your help and look forward to getting this resolved soon! :smileyhappy:
