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HDD and XP Reload problems


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#1
athro

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I have Dell Dimension 8400 with XP HOME Edition OEM. HDD corrupted - had to buy new HDD(sorted this in previous post). Trying to reload my XP home edn OEM CD onto my new HDD drive - my computer says HDD not found. What am I doing wrong? Is there a driver that i need, 'cause my system was OEM? If so, how to install?
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#2
123Runner

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Did you look to see if it is seen in the bios?
The key for bios is usually del, F1, F2, esc.
It will tell in the corner of the screen on boot up.
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#3
athro

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what am I loking for?
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#4
athro

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what am I loking for?
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#5
123Runner

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When you boot the computer up it will scroll through the cmos screen. You should see the drive listed as well as the cd drives and othe items required for boot up.

Look for "to enter bios/cmos " on startup. Then start tapping the appropriate key.
You will get to the bios screen.
You will have to look around for something related to your hard drive (if its present)
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#6
happyrock

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did you have a raid setup by chance...Two 160GB hard drives running in a RAID-0 configuration = 320GB of drive space
go here and download your manual...page 20 is how to setup RAID...page 22 will show you how to set the bios if your not going to use raid

Edited by happyrock, 27 April 2010 - 03:55 PM.

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#7
athro

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If I turn RAID on - what does that allow me to do?
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#8
happyrock

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you need 2 identical hard drives for any kind of RAID...do you have 2 hard drives in the case
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#9
athro

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Am I missing AHCI driver? If so how to load? Is that the one to load off floppy using F6? If so do I just download driver from dell site, transfer to floppy and load from there?
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#10
happyrock

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ahhh... the answering questions with other none related questions game...ok I'll play...
what do you think about the price of tea in china...this years prices vs a decade ago...how about how many tv's they make a year
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#11
athro

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ok smart arse no offence but i am not specialist! You are. I have 1 hard drive in computer. Don't give [bleep] bout tea in china.
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#12
Alzeimer

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If you only have one Hard Drive, then go check in your BIOS (press F2) and try the following:

If you are not using RAID, or do not have an internal floppy drive, enter the system setup, scroll down to drives, press Enter or + to expand the drive menu then down to "SATA Operation", press Enter.

Change the SATA operation mode to "RAID Autodetect/ATA" press ESC to save and exit the BIOS.

It might also be a choice to choose an AHCI mode or ATA mode windows XP does not work under AHCI
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#13
athro

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Thanks Alzeimer!! Changing to Raid auto../ATA worked. My comp. is formatting as I type. This seems a common problem but dell not very forthcoming.

Many thanks again
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#14
Alzeimer

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Glad I could help.
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