Re-occuring boot problem.

[aaaaaaaaaa]

Dell System Dimension 4550 Series
Pheonix ROM BIOS PLUS Version 1.10 A08

I just put a new hard drive in, and now the computer refuses to boot whatsoever.  The only screen I get to says.....

Diskette Drive 0 Seek Failure
Primary Hard Disk Drive 1 Not Found
Secondary Hard Disk Drive 0 Not Found
Secondary Hard Disk Drive 1 Not Found

Strike the F1 Key to Continue, Strike F2 to Run the Setup Utility

Striking both F1 or F2 does nothing, you just hear some kind of error beep.

I've always gotten this message with the old hard drive, however hitting F1 actually let you boot into that hard drive.  I want to be able to boot into this hard drive, and figure out why I get this message whenever I boot so I can 86 it all together.

This computer was previously owned, so I don't know much about this history of the old hard drive.  I know the hard drive I'm trying to put in is pretty old and quite handled.

Here is the old hard drive.
http://www.hitachigst.com/hdd/desk/ds120gxp.htm

Here is the new hard drive.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822144102

[patio]

Jumper the new HDD as master and remove all other drives.
Make sure it's connected to the end connector of the ribbon cable.
Re-boot a few times in a row and enter Setup to see if the BIOS is seeing it.
Post back with the results...

[cervantes100]

F2 enable Primary Hard Disk Drive 1  and reload the OS.

[aaaaaaaaaa]

I set the jumper to master.  The message has changed to.

Primary Hard Disk 1 Drive Not Found
Secondary Hard Disk Drive 1 Not Found

Strike F1 to continue, F2 to go to the setup utility.....

And again, striking F1 or F2 does nothing.

Also, Primary Hard Disk Drive 1 is already set to Auto in the BIOS.  That's the only choice you get, either "Auto", or "off".

Edit:
Setup Utility >>>>
http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/dim4550/syssetup.htm#1097056

If it helps, I went ahead and wrote down what I get for my BIOS listings....

- Primary Drive 0 = Hard Drive
  Model: WDC WD800BB-22FJAI
  Drive Type: Auto
  Capacity: 80020 MB

- Primary Drive 1 = Unkown Device
  Model: Unkown
  Drive Type: Auto
  Capacity: n/a

- Secondary Drive 0 - CD ROM Reader
  Model: _NEC DVD+RW ND-2100AD
  Drive Type - Auto
  Capacity: n/a

- Secondary Drive 1 - Unkown Device
  Model: Unkown
  Drive Type: Auto
  Capacity

As you can see, the BIOS recognizes the hard drive, but I forgot all about a second CD Drive I removed may have changed the message I get on boot.  I had 2 CD-Drives, after messing with the PC a bit I only have 1 and it's set to master, and hooked up to the CD-RW IDE cable of the motherboard.

Does anybody know why the strike F1, strike F2 message would be coming up in the first place though? It came up with the old hard drive that the bootloader was actually able to boot into.

[JJ 3000]

What are you trying to do?
If that's a new (blank) hard drive then you will not be able to boot to it.

[aaaaaaaaaa]

I say 'new' just to distinguish it from the previous hard drive that was in there, which worked.

This hard drive I'm using is like 5 years old, and the last time I used it had Windows XP Home Edition on it.

[JJ 3000]

Did you use it with the same computer or did it come from a different one?

-edit
Just re-read your first post.
You will need to install a new operating system on that drive in order to boot to it.

[aaaaaaaaaa]

Nah, I've never successfully used it with this one.  It came from an old HP I used to have.

[JJ 3000]

You will need to install a new operating system on that drive in order to boot to it.
Or you could put it back in the HP and use it.

[aaaaaaaaaa]

Is there a way to extract the data from it before a fresh OS install?

[JJ 3000]

When you install Windows it creates a Hardware Abstraction Layer that is unique to the hardware for you specific motherboard. You can not just throw a drive in a different computer and expect it to boot. This can only be accomplished if the two machines are identical or nearly identical.

To save the data from that drive you could slave it in another working computer.

http://www.dtidata.com/resourcecenter/2007/04/23/how-to-slave-hard-drive/

Then you will have all of the data saved on the other computer which you can easily transfer via CD, flash drive, or share them on a network.

Or you could boot to a Linux live CD and save the data to a CD or flash drive.

http://lifehacker.com/192982/geek-to-live--rescue-files-with-a-boot-cd

You can only save the data, not the programs. You will need the original disks that the programs came on.

Good luck!

[aaaaaaaaaa]

Thank you all very much for the help.

Mission accomplished.

[JJ 3000]

How did you do it?

[aaaaaaaaaa]

Sorry about never responding.

The problem ended up being I didn't know you had to reformat the drive before you use it with a different motherboard.  It was a drive that came with a manufactured computer.

Once I set up the Jumper settings the right way, hooked it up, and reformatted, it worked fine.