Secondary hard disk drive 0 not found (!?)

[magic_plank]

Hi,
I just installed a new game on my Dell Optiplex GX150 and was an hour or so into playing it when the computer froze, and the CD drive span really fast making a very loud noise

Having no option other than to do a cold reboot the computer was restarted windows and didnt recognise the CD drive. Pressing eject didnt do anything whilst  windows was still loading in DOS or after windows had loaded

I scheduled a CHKDSK/F for the next time  the computer restarted and restarted it. After CHKDSK had completed  it found no errors, but the CD drive still wasnt recognised

After a warm reboot this screen came up before windows was loaded:

>some bios and pc info<
Dell Optiplex GX150
Copyright dell 200x

Secondary hard drive disk 0 not found
Strike F1 to continue, F2 for the setup utility

after pressing F1 windows started to load but the disk still in the CD drive starting spinning with a loud buzzing noise and the computer got no further.

I dont have the WinXP boot CD and it proboably wouldnt work anyway

My best guess is damaged/corrupted system files but I got no further

Please help meeee!

[GX1_Man]

When you go to the F2 Setup screen what do you see in terms of listed drives?

There is only one hard drive and the one CDROM?

If so, then Primary hard drive should be listed in the Primary IDE section and the secondary drive there should be listed as NONE.

Ditto for the CDROM on the secondary channel.

Have you made any hardware changes? Has the computer been recently moved or monkeyed with?

[magic_plank]

setup says

primary drive 0 - hard drive
primary drive 1 - unknown
secondary drive 0 - unknown
secondary drive 1 - off

in boot order, it says:

CD drive (not installed)

[Frankie]

Have you tried it on primary drive 1, or if its already on that have you tried primary drive.

[magic_plank]

wha???

you cant just swap em round as far as I know, theyre not bootable! half of them dont exist!
explain before i explode with confusion!
eeeh!

[patio]

You could try this...
Go to Control Panel/System/Hardware/Device Manager and find the CDRom. Right click it and select remove. You will get a warning message; ignore it.
Now power down and un-plug your power supply. Remove the side panel and disconnect the cables to the CDRom drive. Make sure you are properly grounded.
Connect the power and reboot and shut down a few times with the CDRom still dis connected.
Now repeat the steps in reverse to re-connect your CDRom drive, power up and see what happens...pay attention to the boot screen to see if the BIOS recognises the CD drive. Let it finish booting into Windows. Windows will detect the drive and install it automatically.

Hope this helps.

patio.  

[Frankie]

wha???

you cant just swap em round as far as I know, theyre not bootable! half of them dont exist!
 explain before i explode with confusion!
eeeh!

Sorry ill stay out of this one im a little confused i thought you said your cd drive isnt recognised or do you mean your hard drive.

[magic_plank]

hi again,
something very odd has happened,
my optiplex is compact in design and all the drives have little tabs that you push and the drive pops out. After following your instructions in the WRONG order, (i took the drive out first) and restarting, it works fine! i think the cable became disconected, it isnt held in by anything,
I see if it stays working!
thanks for all you help!

[magic_plank]

It didnt stay working...


Whenever I restart the computer it works fine, but then if I try to get onto the CD drive again a little while later, it doesnt work at all. ths little error message appears:

/!\      was not found

there is a space where I assume D:\ should be

YYYEEEEEARRRRRRRRG!
*kicks computer*

[GX1_Man]

setup says

primary drive 0 - hard drive
primary drive 1 - unknown
secondary drive 0 - unknown
secondary drive 1 - off

in boot order, it says:

CD drive (not installed)

It should say:
primary drive 0 - hard drive or auto
primary drive 1 - off
secondary drive 0 - auto
secondary drive 1 - off

Again, the drives have to be jumpered correctly. If you haven't changed anything and they were working before, leave it alone. If it has been monkey with see previous post about CD (cable selct) on the primary drive(s).


This is the mini-desktop model? Have you cleared the NVRAM?

[magic_plank]

I think its a mini desktop, not sure what that means, but it has laptop style cd and floppy drives, a compact harddrive and low profile pci slots, as for NVRAM, it may as well be moon-cheese for as much as I know about it  

[GX1_Man]

When you are in F2 setup screen, press the keys that light up all 3 keyboard lights - NumLock, Caps Lock, Scroll lock, then hold down the Alt key and press the E key until you hear a short series of beeps (4-5). Then restart system by pressing escape.

That is the mini-desktop, but I have worked on a large number of those and I think this CAN be resolved.

Is everything else setup as I told you to?

[magic_plank]

Ok,
I cleared the NVRAM and made sure everything was how it should be and its still not working!
Arrrg!

[GX1_Man]

Can you try another, known working CDROM in that computer?

No, it is one of those mini-desktops, so they use a laptop drive as I recall.

You may have to find one of those to make your system like it was. SOmetimes they can just die.

If you have a non-functioning drive in there AND it is set is the BIOS, I think the computer will not function correctly.

Can you set the CDROM, actually everything on the secondary channel to NONE and reboot the machine?

[magic_plank]

It boots up fine now (apart from the drive not working)

Do you think a new drive should fix it?
Are they expsensive?