HELP - Dell 8400 reboot problem

computeridiotcomputeridiot
edited August 2008 in Hardware
My Dell Demension 8400 will not boot properly. It says is doesn't recognize the hard drive. It then gives me the option to push F1 to retry or F2 for the setup menu. When I push F1 it just repeats that the drives are not recognized and when I push F2 I have no idea what any of the stuff in the menus mean. I did notice that in the Boot Sequence menu the first 4 drives listed have "(not installed)" next to them. I'm assuming this is incorrect and probably not good.
The weird thing is that I have been able to get the computer booted, but in a different way each time. Once it just "magically" started booting (I seriously didn't touch anything after the "push F1" message came up, the last time I turned it off, left it alone and then turned it on again. The same error message came up but when I pushed F1 it booted right up.
I'm afraid to turn off the computer for fear that I will not get it started again one of these times. Any help would be greatly appreciated. As you can probably guess from my screen name as well as my lack of use of technical terms I don't know much about computers so please treat me like a child when explaining how fix my problem.
Thanks!!!

Comments

  • muddocktormuddocktor
    edited August 2007
    It sounds to me like you are possibly having a hard drive problem, most likely a hard drive failure. You might try booting up with the Dell diagnostic boot disk and see what it finds. It is also possibly a bad data cable from the hard drive or maybe the power cord got disconnected from the hard drive too. Check for possible connection problems, then try running the diagnostic disk. If you computer is still under warantee you can get Dell to replace the hard drive if it failed, otherwise you will need to replace it yourself and reinstall your apps and stuff.
  • tim233ebaytim233ebay ohio
    edited August 2008
    Hello, first time poster. been reading forums all day and can't quit find my problem or more importantly a fix..

    i was restoring a dell Dimension 8400. i'm guessing i screwed up the hard drive format somewhere along the way.. any way - i used the utility disk to crate the boot disk for sata/raid like it said. rebooted system with operation disk in cd and pushed f12 - clicked on "S" to load from the floppy and it did. windows then spent a while copying files and started setup asking time and all that happy stuff. at some point it said it needed to restart so i did.. now windows XP boots and a blue screen saying " a problem has been detected and windows has shut down" etc:. I have started over 3 times now and every time i end up here???

    and suggestions. i am afraid i have already lost the partitions on the hard drive and stuff so the restore from that image is not an option..

    Thanks for any assistance
    tim
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