Boot Problem: Hard Disk not found

edited August 2011 in Hardware
My friend has a dell optiplex gx240. He brought it over because he somehow managed to get 2 opperating systems installed on the same drive and it was causing him alot of problems. I completle wiped the hard drive and reinstalled windows. Now when the computer boots up it beeps twice and i get an error message that says:

"Primary hard disk drive 1 not found"
"Strike F1 to continue, F2 to run the setup utility"

If I press F1 the computer boots up as it normally would right to windows, its just really annoying that it comes up EVERY time I start the computer.

I have tried changing the jummper settings, tried switching the plugs so it was in differnt spots on the harness... there is one hard drive, 2 cd-rom drives and a floppy drive installed on the computer. The 2 cd rom drives are hooked up on the same cable. The floppy drive has its own cable, as does the hard drive. :confused::confused: Any and all help would be greatly appreciated! :confused::confused:

Comments

  • edited April 2005
    check to make sure that the cables are on the right way. Do they have the little numbs on them? Could it be possible that the cable is bad. Switch the Cd-roim cable with the hard drive cable to see if the cable is bad.

    bikerboy
  • profdlpprofdlp The Holy City Of Westlake, Ohio
    edited April 2005
    Check in the bios to see how many drives it thinks are installed on the Primary IDE Channel.

    Computers number things in a funny way at times. The first drive might be called "0"; the second "1". Set the Primary Slave drive to "None" or "Auto" and see if the problem goes away.
  • edited April 2005
    profdlp wrote:
    Check in the bios to see how many drives it thinks are installed on the Primary IDE Channel.

    Thanks!!! :D Checked in the bios and primary 1 was set on auto and said "unknown device" turned it from auto to off and the problem went away!! THANKS ALOT!!! :thumbsup:
  • profdlpprofdlp The Holy City Of Westlake, Ohio
    edited April 2005
    Glad you got it. :)

    Welcome to Short-Media. :wave:
  • edited April 2005
    good call Prof! :thumbsup: Not sure why i didn't think of that :scratch:
    Welcome to Short-media Highspl

    bikerboy
  • edited October 2008
    profdlp wrote:
    Check in the bios to see how many drives it thinks are installed on the Primary IDE Channel.

    Computers number things in a funny way at times. The first drive might be called "0"; the second "1". Set the Primary Slave drive to "None" or "Auto" and see if the problem goes away.

    I wanted to add a thank-you also -- although, since I'm responding to advice given in 2005, I'm not sure you'll ever see it. I started having the same problem, as of October 10. After doing everything I could possibly think of, I found your answer here; I did exactly what highspl had done -- and it cleared up the problem immediately!
  • edited August 2011
    Porfdlp, what a great call , worked fine for me on a win 7 system ..you da man !
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