P
phil
About a month ago, I bought some memory for my Dell Dimension 8400. I
even brought the packing slip along which came with the computer,
showing what type of memory was installed at the factory.
Some idiot at one of the electronic stores - after cross referencing it
on a store computer, still sold me the wrong cards. My machine went
bonkers after I installed the cards. I had nothing but blue screens
everywhere. I couldn't get into Windows. I used the F2 key and changed
a few things in the drive menu. Whatever I did, it allowed me the
following screen, and with the F1 key, I finally got back into
Windows. So, the following screen is what I see every time I boot up.
Opening screen before Windows
Drive 1 Not Found: Serial ATA, SATA-1
Drive 2 Not Found: Serial ATA, SATA-2
Drive 3 Not Found: Serial ATA, SATA-3
Drive 5 Not Found: Parallel ATA, PATA A1, (Pri IDE Slave)
Strike F1 to continue, F2 to run Setup Utility
(Let me state here, I had ZERO problems of any kind before this
happening.)
------------------------------------------------------------------
I am running Windows XP Pro.
I have 5 external drives along with my A: floppy and D: CD ROM.
C: (Which came with the machine.)
E: A Maxtor 275 Gig external.
F: A Seagate Free Agent 250 Gig external
J: A Seagate Free Agent 500 Gig external
M: A Seagate Free Agent 500 Gig external
(I have virtual volumes made with BestCrypt which have the drive letters
G, H, I, K, and L attributed to them. That's why the listed HDs are not
sequential in letters.)
Despite what the F2 Setup says, all my disks are working perfectly.
Previously, I had made my CD drive the first in line to boot. This was
so I could use my Acronis True Image CD to recover from any Windows
failure. However, Since this snafu by the store idiot, my CD will not
boot the computer, even though I have it that way in the F2 setup
screen. The screen does tell me that the CD ROM is in the #1 position
to boot, but the comp doesn't work that way. It insists
on booting from A:. This means if I have a catastrophic failure, my
Acronis System Recovery CD is worthless. This was not true before this
nonsense happened. I know that for a fact because I checked frequently
by booting from the CD. I wanted to make sure everything was right just
in case I had a Windows failure. I took it to one repair guy who
wouldn't touch it because he said he had never seen such a thing
before.
Here is what I see when I use the F2 key:
Setup Boot Sequence
1 Onboard CD ROM
2 Onboard Floppy
3 SATA HD
4 IDE HD ----- Not Present
5 USB Device
---------------------------------------
Drives
Diskette
Drive 0: SATA 0
Drive 1: SATA - 1
Drive 2: SATA - 3
Drive 3: SATA - 3
Drive 4: PATA - 0
Drive 5: PATA - 1
SATA OPERATION
===================
Does anyone have any idea what is wrong?
Would it help if I replaced the C: drive with a new one, or is this a
hardware problem which would carry over?
I'm wondering if my motherboard is screwed up. I'd like to find a
solution to this before my C: drive fails. It's quite a few years old by
now. I'm also wondering if I should just stuff this box and get a new
one - not that I'm delighted with having to spend a few grand for this
solution.
??.
even brought the packing slip along which came with the computer,
showing what type of memory was installed at the factory.
Some idiot at one of the electronic stores - after cross referencing it
on a store computer, still sold me the wrong cards. My machine went
bonkers after I installed the cards. I had nothing but blue screens
everywhere. I couldn't get into Windows. I used the F2 key and changed
a few things in the drive menu. Whatever I did, it allowed me the
following screen, and with the F1 key, I finally got back into
Windows. So, the following screen is what I see every time I boot up.
Opening screen before Windows
Drive 1 Not Found: Serial ATA, SATA-1
Drive 2 Not Found: Serial ATA, SATA-2
Drive 3 Not Found: Serial ATA, SATA-3
Drive 5 Not Found: Parallel ATA, PATA A1, (Pri IDE Slave)
Strike F1 to continue, F2 to run Setup Utility
(Let me state here, I had ZERO problems of any kind before this
happening.)
------------------------------------------------------------------
I am running Windows XP Pro.
I have 5 external drives along with my A: floppy and D: CD ROM.
C: (Which came with the machine.)
E: A Maxtor 275 Gig external.
F: A Seagate Free Agent 250 Gig external
J: A Seagate Free Agent 500 Gig external
M: A Seagate Free Agent 500 Gig external
(I have virtual volumes made with BestCrypt which have the drive letters
G, H, I, K, and L attributed to them. That's why the listed HDs are not
sequential in letters.)
Despite what the F2 Setup says, all my disks are working perfectly.
Previously, I had made my CD drive the first in line to boot. This was
so I could use my Acronis True Image CD to recover from any Windows
failure. However, Since this snafu by the store idiot, my CD will not
boot the computer, even though I have it that way in the F2 setup
screen. The screen does tell me that the CD ROM is in the #1 position
to boot, but the comp doesn't work that way. It insists
on booting from A:. This means if I have a catastrophic failure, my
Acronis System Recovery CD is worthless. This was not true before this
nonsense happened. I know that for a fact because I checked frequently
by booting from the CD. I wanted to make sure everything was right just
in case I had a Windows failure. I took it to one repair guy who
wouldn't touch it because he said he had never seen such a thing
before.
Here is what I see when I use the F2 key:
Setup Boot Sequence
1 Onboard CD ROM
2 Onboard Floppy
3 SATA HD
4 IDE HD ----- Not Present
5 USB Device
---------------------------------------
Drives
Diskette
Drive 0: SATA 0
Drive 1: SATA - 1
Drive 2: SATA - 3
Drive 3: SATA - 3
Drive 4: PATA - 0
Drive 5: PATA - 1
SATA OPERATION
===================
Does anyone have any idea what is wrong?
Would it help if I replaced the C: drive with a new one, or is this a
hardware problem which would carry over?
I'm wondering if my motherboard is screwed up. I'd like to find a
solution to this before my C: drive fails. It's quite a few years old by
now. I'm also wondering if I should just stuff this box and get a new
one - not that I'm delighted with having to spend a few grand for this
solution.
??.