wow dell really sucks

this computer has given me nothing but problems and this one is by far the worst one yet my dell for some reason got the idea in it's head that it isn't going to find a hardrive anymore all i did was remove it and put it back in because i was cleaning the dust out of my computer...can anybody help me out here im frustrated beyond belief and everyone that thinks they can fix it ends up screwin with my bios settings and screwin up stuff more

 

Have you tried a utility disk that came iwth your pc? I hope you made one when you got it if not.

 

no i bought the computer as a refurbished computer so i do not have any o the disks or anything i think it's the bios not to hardrive because i put the drive in my other computer and it reads it perfectly

 

well as i said before



maybe the mobo just crapped out, try resseting it by dicsonnecting power and taking out the mobo battery for a few minutes.also since dells fail so much they put a light system on the mobo, to tell you what is wrong, like red-red-red-red=your ****ed or somethign like that, tehy probably have a thing taht lists all the LED codes on their website.

 

is that the one that looks like a watch battery?

 

yeah, make sure to disconect the power supply, don't just turn it off.

 

k what happens after that? haha i got the battery in my hand

 

wait a minute or 2 pop it back in and strat it up.

 

I would also try disconnecting and reconnecting the hdd, you could have bent a pin or something.

 

tried all that and still nothing man im starting to get worried here....could this mean the motherboard is shot? or the hardrive?

 

could be eitehr, what exactly happens when you power it up.

are there any leaking/bulging capacitors on your mobo?

 

when i power it up the little dell screen pops up all fine everythings happy then alert! cover has been removed then primary hard disk 0 not found and now it's sayen all the bios shit cause i have to set the time and all that crap

 

what error messages do you get and what do the LEDs on the back of the mobo look like, i am afraid that maybe

 

goes orange green green green if you are looking at it straight so the far left is orange and the other are green and it says hit F1 to continue or F2 to run set up utility which brings you to dos

 

what model is your dell?

 

dell precision workstation 420

 

http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/ws420/en/ug/messages.htm

has LED and beep codes listed, as well as other stuff.
and i think your dell is a pothead judging by the model #

 

oh well it has warranty im just going to bring it back and tell nothernlights computing that they are at fault and i want a new computer immediatly thanks for you help everybody !

 

I would like to say, I have a ton of dells, I am perfectly happy with all of them.

Now check both sides of the ide cable. then try replacing the cd-rom ide cable the hd one. to make sure you didn't brake the ribbon cable when you were cleaning it. If it boots get a new ribbon cable.

from now on, i would sugest blowing the system out with compressed air once every few months or so. Don't take things apart for Sh!ts and giggles.

 

i have tried this and still nothing and now the computer store is trying to tell me it's something i did all i did was take the hardrive out to clear out some of the caked on dust inside there...

 

I would say the same thing personaly. do you have another hd laying around ? If so swap it in to see if it is the drive or the board. you can also switch primary and secondary channels so your cd drive will show up in bios where you hard drive is that will tell you if it is board, cable, or drive.


Good luck

 

i have 2 other hardrives laying around and i tried switching it around a couple times it said it had one for like 20 mins one time went to put xp on it...same thing happened and now im stuck back here

 

After you removed the battery from the MB and replaced it, you got the F1 prompt to enter the BIOS. Did you do that and set the Time and Date?

You should check your BIOS to see that both IDE controllers are enabled and that the harddrive is set to autodetect.

Also try hooking the HD up to the CDROM ribbon but leave the ribbon on the secondary IDE plug and see if the BIOS can find it then.

Does the BIOS see or detect the CDROM, Can you boot from it?

 

yeah it'l boot the cd drive and everything but no boot from the hardrive it's just too burnt out for me man i brought it to another computer store because i need my work off of is soon and im starting to think ill never be able to do it myself