[mozzer11]

Recently my friend had a problem whereby when he started his computer (Dell dimension 4400) it just goes to a 'dell dimension' screen and has two options:
F2 for setup and F12 for boot menu
I went into setup and in primary device 0 it says there is no HD on it. I tried reinstalling XP hoping it would reinstall the HD IDE drivers again and it would work but no luck, it still goes to the F2, F12 menu. Any ideas?

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Hello,
If the drive is not "seen" by the BIOS then there is a good chance that the drive has failed. (new drives can fail for no reason)
Check that the power connection is firmly seated to the drive.

[hfcg]

Hello,
If the drive is not "seen" by the BIOS then there is a good chance that the drive has failed. (new drives can fail for no reason)
Check that the power connection is firmly seated to the drive.

[Nicolet]

I wouldn’t say it failed, they hardly do without showing warnings of it unless he dropped the PC from a third floor or something, try opening it and disconnecting everything and reconnect it, I’ve seen that happen on some Dell sometimes, also you should try changing the power cable that goes to the hard drive in case it is the power source, also try another IDE cable to rule it out.
Try restoring BIOS to default settings also.

[hfcg]

While I hope that it is a loose cable, hard drives fail with no warning at all.
The easy test is to swap with a known good hard drive. (after checking the cables.)