Failed Hard Drive

[Joanne]

Dell Dimension 4300
WinXP Pro

I had a hard drive failure on the above computer.
I have purchased and physically installed a new hard drive.
My dilemma is that there are no drivers on the new hard drive of course
so when I try to boot to the CD Drive so that I can install my operating
system, the computer doesn't recognize a cd drive as being part of the
system.
There is a 3.5 floppy drive. I was thinking I need to download the
installation of the cd driver on the floppy and then use it to install
the cd drive.
But I am confused how to do it. I am thinking I can only install the
driver into memory at this point until I get the hard drive partitioned
and ready for data. But I need to boot to the WinXP CD (I think I am
correct here?) and without the cd river I cannot do that, and if I put
the CD driver in memory as soon as I try to re-boot to the winxp cd, I
lose the cd driver. Wow, it is confusing just trying to explain my
problem.
Could someone please give me a hand with this. What do I need to do and
in what sequence please, or perhaps you can suggest some on-line
instruction that I can read and learn from.
Your help is, as always, much appreciated by me.
Thank you
Joanne

 

[JS]

Check you BIOS, set it so the first boot device is the CD drive.
Also make sure you have the latest versions of the drivers you need for your
motherboard,
video card, sound card, Etc. from the manufacture's web site.

How to do a Clean Install of Windows XP: (Read this as it will show you how
and when to install drivers)
From Michael Steven's: http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html
more info: http://windowsxp.mvps.org/XPClean.htm
and: http://www.theeldergeek.com/clean_installation_of_windows_xp.htm
also: http://www.bootdisk.com/

JS

 

[smlunatick]

Dell Dimension 4300
WinXP Pro

I had a hard drive failure on the above computer.
I have purchased and physically installed a new hard drive.
My dilemma is that there are no drivers on the new hard drive of course
so when I try to boot to the CD Drive so that I can install my operating
system, the computer doesn't recognize a cd drive as being part of the
system.
There is a 3.5 floppy drive. I was thinking I need to download the
installation of the cd driver on the floppy and then use it to install
the cd drive.
But I am confused how to do it. I am thinking I can only install the
driver into memory at this point until I get the hard drive partitioned
and ready for data. But I need to boot to the WinXP CD (I think I am
correct here?) and without the cd river I cannot do that, and if I put
the CD driver in memory as soon as I try to re-boot to the winxp cd, I
lose the cd driver. Wow, it is confusing just trying to explain my
problem.
Could someone please give me a hand with this. What do I need to do and
in what sequence please, or perhaps you can suggest some on-line
instruction that I can read and learn from.
Your help is, as always, much appreciated by me.
Thank you
Joanne

Is sad to say but is seems that your Dell provided its XP recovery
system as a "partition" on the old failed hard drive. If you are
trying to re-install the XP onto a new SATA based hard drive, some PC
require additional SATA drivers during the install. Check on Dell's
web site for this possible driver or ask their Customer support for
the separate recovery medias.

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

It is not a driver problem. It is, as JS says, the boot order in the BIOS.
Set the cd ahead of the hdd and it should boot from the cd. Most laptops
come with PXE as first in the boot order. You can ignore that.

 

[Daave]

Dell Dimension 4300
WinXP Pro

I had a hard drive failure on the above computer.
I have purchased and physically installed a new hard drive.
My dilemma is that there are no drivers on the new hard drive of
course so when I try to boot to the CD Drive so that I can install my
operating system, the computer doesn't recognize a cd drive as being
part of the system.

You need to make sure you boot off the CD.

From
http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/dim4300/solve.htm#1140285


1. Insert the Operating System CD into the CD or DVD drive.

Close any program or utility that may start to run after you insert the
CD into the drive.

*HINT*: The CD that you need to place in your CD or DVD drive is titled
Operating System.

2. Turn off the computer, and then turn the computer on again.

3. When the blue Dell logo appears, press <F12> immediately.

If you wait too long and the operating system logo appears, continue to
wait until you see the Microsoft Windows desktop. Then shut down the
computer and try again.

4. Use the arrow keys to select the CD-ROM option, and then press
<Enter>.

5. When the Windows XP Setup screen appears, press <Enter> to select To
set up Windows now.


You should also bookmark this page:

http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html

 

[Plato]

Dell Dimension 4300
WinXP Pro

I had a hard drive failure on the above computer.
I have purchased and physically installed a new hard drive.
My dilemma is that there are no drivers on the new hard drive of course
so when I try to boot to the CD Drive so that I can install my operating
system, the computer doesn't recognize a cd drive as being part of the
system.

Are the jumper setting correct?

 

[Joanne]

I tried to change BIOS boot order before posting this question. Problem
is, there is no check mark next to CD in the boot sequence - it in fact
states that there is no CD Drive on the system. Hence my problem.
I know without a doubt that the CD drive is properly plugged into the
system and also that is is a properly functioning CD Drive.
My problem remains - no driver on this new hard drive, so I think I need
to get the CD driver from floppy Drive A, but how to get it loaded onto
the system and be able to re-boot so that I can goto the CD drive and
the XP operating system cd. I did download smartdrv.sys and put it on a
floppy, but I still don't know how to use it to get the CD drive to run.
Thanks for your efforts on this problem - I do appreciate your time.
Joanne

 

[JS]

Is your new hard drive connected to the same cable as the CD drive?
If so you need to set the jumper on the hard drive so as not to conflict
with the CD drive.

Usually they have there own cables, one cable for the hard drive and one for
the CD drive.
If this is the case then it still does not hurt to check that the cables
(Data and Power) on the CD drive
are fully inserted and not loose.

As a last resort you can reset the BIOS (see owners manual) and then see if
during the next time
you boot that the CD drive is recognized.

JS

 

[C.Joseph S. Drayton]

Dell Dimension 4300
WinXP Pro

I had a hard drive failure on the above computer.
I have purchased and physically installed a new hard drive.
My dilemma is that there are no drivers on the new hard drive of
course so when I try to boot to the CD Drive so that I can install my
operating system, the computer doesn't recognize a cd drive as being
part of the system.
There is a 3.5 floppy drive. I was thinking I need to download the
installation of the cd driver on the floppy and then use it to install
the cd drive.
But I am confused how to do it. I am thinking I can only install the
driver into memory at this point until I get the hard drive
partitioned and ready for data. But I need to boot to the WinXP CD (I
think I am correct here?) and without the cd river I cannot do that,
and if I put the CD driver in memory as soon as I try to re-boot to
the winxp cd, I lose the cd driver. Wow, it is confusing just trying
to explain my problem.
Could someone please give me a hand with this. What do I need to do
and in what sequence please, or perhaps you can suggest some on-line
instruction that I can read and learn from.
Your help is, as always, much appreciated by me.
Thank you
Joanne

Did you know that some BIOS have two modes?

My dv8100cto uses a Phoenix BIOS. In 'supervisor' mode I can disable
the CDROM as a bootable device. When a regular user hits escape to
chose a boot device, if I have set the CDROM to disabled for boot, it
does not even show on the list. The CDROM will still work from within
Linux or Windows, it simply is not recognized as a bootable device when
the system powers up or resets.

Note that with BIOS'es that have 2 modes like that you can set a
separate password for the supervisor in that case when the user goes
into the BIOS, they have only a limited set of changes they can make.
The supervisor can make all of the changes. On the machine I use for
demos, I have a 'supervisor' password, but don't even bother to set one
for the 'user'. I've simply set the hard disk as the primary boot
device and disabled the others.

--

Sincerely,
C.Joseph Drayton, Ph.D. AS&T

CSD Computer Services
Web site: http://csdcs.tlerma.com/
E-mail: (e-mail address removed)

 

[C.Joseph S. Drayton]

Dell Dimension 4300
WinXP Pro

I had a hard drive failure on the above computer.
I have purchased and physically installed a new hard drive.
My dilemma is that there are no drivers on the new hard drive of
course so when I try to boot to the CD Drive so that I can install my
operating system, the computer doesn't recognize a cd drive as being
part of the system.
There is a 3.5 floppy drive. I was thinking I need to download the
installation of the cd driver on the floppy and then use it to install
the cd drive.
But I am confused how to do it. I am thinking I can only install the
driver into memory at this point until I get the hard drive
partitioned and ready for data. But I need to boot to the WinXP CD (I
think I am correct here?) and without the cd river I cannot do that,
and if I put the CD driver in memory as soon as I try to re-boot to
the winxp cd, I lose the cd driver. Wow, it is confusing just trying
to explain my problem.
Could someone please give me a hand with this. What do I need to do
and in what sequence please, or perhaps you can suggest some on-line
instruction that I can read and learn from.
Your help is, as always, much appreciated by me.
Thank you
Joanne

When you do get the WindowsXP install disk running, you need to watch
the bottom line of the screen. A line will come up saying that if you
need to install SATA drivers press [F6]. At this point you put in the
cd you made of the floppy and it will load the SATA drivers. You will
then be prompted to put the WindowsXP disk back in the machine. From
that point forward, yu just follow the problems as though it is a
standard WindowsXP install.

--

Sincerely,
C.Joseph Drayton, Ph.D. AS&T

CSD Computer Services
Web site: http://csdcs.tlerma.com/
E-mail: (e-mail address removed)

 

[Joanne]

No, the CD is directly connected to the mother board, no piggy-backs.
The jumper on the CD is in the 'cable select' mode
I went to MS site and generated the WinXP setup floppy disks (6 in set)
and ran those. After their install, I hit the enter key to go to Windows
setup, and I again get a message that there is no CD drive on this
computer.
I tried a new flat cable, using the one in a computer that has a
properly working cd player in it. No Go.
I took the cable and re-installed it in the other computer, took the
errant CD drive and installed it in the other cd, and voila, all is
well.
Am I looking at a CD controller failure on the problem computer? If that
is the case, is there any remedy.
Thank you so much for your time and efforts regarding my problem. Your
expertise is helping make this a little easier to get through

 

[JS]

Sorry for the delay in getting back but I was doing an:
Image backup of my hard drive,
then some Windows Updates and
finally a defrag of the hard drive.
All this took a while.

Now a question as I'm a bit confused to this part of your latest reply.
"I took the cable and re-installed it in the other computer, took the
errant CD drive and installed it in the other cd, and voila, all is
well."
Do you mean you installed a different CD drive?

JS

 

[Daave]

Problem is, there is no check mark next to CD in the boot
sequence - it in fact states that there is no CD Drive on the system.

Pressing the spacebar is supposed to enable or disable a device in the
boot sequence menu. Enabled devices have a checkmark. Have you tried
pressing the space bar?

 

[Joanne]

Sorry for the bad communication JS
What I did was put the good cd drive cable back into the good machine. I
then took the CD Drive from the 'bad' machine and installed that into
the good machine. Then all works well - in other words, the cable and
the cd drive are okay when ran on a different Dell machine. That is what
is leading me to suspect that the controller on the 'bad' machine's
mother board is bad.
Again, if it is the controller, is there a remedy or is it trash pretty
much?
I hope I did a better job explaining this this time ;-)
Again, thanks for your consideration of my troubles.

 

[JS]

I would check the Pins on the motherboard where the drive cable connects.
Also check the power cable to the cd drive, use another power cable if one
is available.

Next check the system code displayed on the back of the PC.
See: http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/dim4300/codes.htm

If still no luck then as a last resort I would perform a hard reset of the
BIOS.
You can do this by powering down the PC, removing the AC power cord and then
waiting 60 seconds.
With the power cord still removed press the power-on button (you may see a
brief flicker of the power on led)
this will totally discharge the motherboard.

Now remove the CMOS battery from the motherboard and wait
about 4 minutes for the BIOS to reset and then reinsert the battery.

Reconnect the AC power cord and then turn on power, see if the BIOS then
recognizes the CD drive.
Report back your results.

JS

 

[Joanne]

JS
I went thru your instructions, and lo and behold, removing the battery
waiting 4 mins and re-installing the battery, start the thing up and
there is the dang CD Drive. Hip Hip Hooray!!
I so appreciate all that you have taught me
Thank you very much

 

[JS]

You're welcome.

JS

JS
I went thru your instructions, and lo and behold, removing the battery
waiting 4 mins and re-installing the battery, start the thing up and
there is the dang CD Drive. Hip Hip Hooray!!
I so appreciate all that you have taught me
Thank you very much

 

[smlunatick]

You're welcome.

JS






- Show quoted text -

You should also note that since you have remove the CMOS battery, you
need to re-do the entire CMOS configurations, not only the date/time
and the drive boot sequence. CMOS battery removal resets the CMOS to
"default" setting tant may / may not be your exact configuration. You
will need to "tweak" the settings as needed since you might not have a
"record" of these settings.