[LaurieH]

Oh, where to start?!?!?!?! First, let me say, I know just enough about computers to be dangerous. I have a Dell Dimension 8200, Windows ME with an XP upgrade, which was a Christmas gift. There were some problems when the OS was just ME so my parents took it to Best Buy had ME reinstalled and then upgraded to XP, opting to just buy themselves a laptop.

Since I have had the computer there haven't been any problems. I have been downloading, burning CD's and listening to music on it. For the past couple of weeks my computer has been running very slow and eventually would start freezing up forcing me to reboot. The mouse and keyboard would stop responding and Ctrl+Alt+Del never worked; it didn't matter if I was on the internet or listening to Windows Media Player. Sometimes it would freeze up while I wasn't even using it.

Earlier this week I received the blue screen of death stating there was a fatal error (something about a kernel error.) I followed the directions to reboot since this was the first time I had received the error and I haven't seen the screen since. The computer was slow to respond so I did a ScanDisk and tried to DeFrag but it always hung up 1% into compacting the files. I aborted that option thinking I would ask for help this weekend. Friday night I came home and hopped online to check my email when it froze again. When I rebooted, all I got was the Dell screen and then the prompt that said "strike F1 to retry boot, F2 for setup utility".

After doing some research online (using the parents laptop) all day I have found out or done the following things:

- unplugged any and all uncessary hardware to make sure it is not a hardware malfunction

- I don't have the option to boot in safe mode as it never gets to the windows screen

- After checking my BIOs settings to let my computer boot from the CD-Rom to try booting up from the XP installation disk, it says that my CD-Rom is not installed

-BIOs settings show my Hard Disk Drive is not installed either.

I have tried to give as much information on the problem to try and get some useful help. Any and all feedback is appreciated. Thanks!!!!!

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Open up your computer box and see if the cable from your HD to your motherboard is correctly connected. Also do this with your CD drive.

Emery

Edited by S A A B, 10 July 2005 - 12:17 AM.

[S A A B]

Open up your computer box and see if the cable from your HD to your motherboard is correctly connected. Also do this with your CD drive.

Emery

Edited by S A A B, 10 July 2005 - 12:17 AM.

[LaurieH]

I got it open but having never opened up the inside of a computer before, I am not totally sure what I am looking for? Any suggestions??

[LaurieH]

I checked all of the connections and nothing seemed loose. Could it be as simple as the battery needing to be replaced? Would it hurt anything if I turned on the computer while the tower is open?

[S A A B]

You can turn on the computer when the box is open. Do make sure nothing is hanging in front of the fans and that you don't touch anything while it's on.

Emery

[LaurieH]

ok, did a little more research. went to the dell support webiste (very crappy) and figured out how to run a diagnostics test on the hard drive. Hit Ctrl+Alt+D and it ran the test and the follwing showed up:

IDE Drive Diagnositcs running, please wait...
Primary IDE
Drive 0: no IDE device
Drive 1: no IDE device
Secondary IDE
Drive 0: no IDE device
Drive 1: no IDE device

No IDE Hard Drives installed, press any key to continue

and I do and still get the same F1/F2 error message???

Edited by LaurieH, 10 July 2005 - 02:37 AM.

[peterm]

did the computer come with a recovery disk you normaly get one with a dell

[LaurieH]

I have the Drivers and Utilities CD as well as the ME Reinstallation CD that came with the computer but I can't use my CD-ROM because the computer won't recognize it nor the hard drive. Do you think I could copy it onto a disk?

[peterm]

go back in to setup and check if it is set for auto detect on the hard drive

[LaurieH]

it's set to auto for all four drives but when i click enter it shows up as unknown device for all

Edited by LaurieH, 10 July 2005 - 02:59 AM.

[peterm]

do you have any paperwork that gives you drive information - make model number etc

[LaurieH]

System Summary

Service Tag:
System Type: Dimension 8200
Ship Date: 9/29/2001
Dell IBU: Americas


Quantity Parts # Part Description

1 0E666 HARD DRIVE, 60GB, I, 7.2K, 20/P, IBM-ERC

1 1H315 ASSEMBLY, CARD (CIRCUIT), PLANAR (MOTHERBOARD), RISER, PC INTERFACE, TRANSFORMER SKY DIVE MINITOWER, 8200
1 7E598 ASSEMBLY, CARD (CIRCUIT), PLANAR (MOTHERBOARD), DIM8200
1 9E825 PROCESSOR, 80531, 2.0GHZ, 0K, 400FSB, SOCKET N
1 9C487 KEYBOARD, 104, 6P, UNITED STATES, SILITEK, MIDNIGHT GRAY
1 735HE MOUSE, PERSONAL SYSTEM 2, 6P, 2BTN, WHEEL, 1.3A, MICROSOFT, MIDNIGHT GRAY
2 1164P RAMBUS INLINE MEMORY MODULE, 128, 400M, 64X16, 8C
2 9578D CARD (CIRCUIT), MEMORY BOARD, MEMORY, PRINTED WIRING BOARD, CONTINUITY, RAMBUS
1 20CKU KIT, SPEAKER, 120V, DELL MIDNIGHT GRAY, HK695
1 5740C CABLE, AUXILIARY, INTERNAL, MODEM, 4C
1 969NU MODEM, V.90, INTERNAL, DATA/FAX/VOICE, ASIA, LATIN AMERICA, NORTH AMERICA, TITAN
1 1E618 COMPACT DISK READ WRITE, 680M, I, 5.25" FORM FACTOR, 16X, NEC CORPORATION, CHASSIS 2001
1 3F299 KIT, COMPACT DISKETTE, COMPACT DISK READ WRITE, ROXIO, V5.0
1 38FRH CARD (CIRCUIT), MULTI-MEDIA, AUDIO, SANTA CRUZ
1 5G998 CARD (CIRCUIT), GRAPHICS, 32MB, NV11, TELEVISION OUTPUT, SECOND
1 2D067 FLOPPY DRIVE, 1.44M, 3.5" FORM FACTOR, 3MD, NO BEZEL, SONY, CHASSIS 2001, W3

1 3H240 DOCUMENTATION, WINDOWS XP HOME, UPGRADE, ENGLAND/ENGLISH, FREE
1 10RDC KIT, SOFTWARE, WKS-STE2K1, 5.25" FORM FACTOR, ORIGINAL EQUIPMENT MFGR., ENGLAND/ENGLISH
1 7C712 CARD (CIRCUIT), NETWORK, ETHERNET, 10/100, CNET TECHNOLOGY INC, REVISION
1 5C544 DISPLAY, MULTISCAN, 19, DUAL, M991, MIDNIGHT GRAY, DELL AMERICAS ORGANIZATION, MAIN HARMONIC REDUCTION

[peterm]

can you check the drive number again - comes up a blank on IBM web site

[LaurieH]

Try 340-3094 should be the item number, the other is the parts number from the website.

[peterm]

when you go into setup can you change secondary drive 0 to cd rom
and when the computer starts do you hear any beeps

Edited by peterm, 10 July 2005 - 04:31 AM.