Major Issue with 8400

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

Here's the story. I have tried everything in my right mind the last 2
weeks to get this thing working.

One day window's stopped booting (XP Pro) and even when I went to
system repair I got blue screened when it was installing the Hardware.
So in turn I formatted using a Win98 boot disk. From there I managed to
get the Win98 install going but when I tried upgrading to XP it kept
crashing on the install and saying it could not find a harddrive. Now--
I checked a few things. The computer came with a diagnostic tool kit and
I ran the whole thing and no hardware issues were detected. From there I
found an SATA driver that I managed to get onto a floppy for this
particular problem. I loaded the driver up and XP still could not find
the HD. I'm about to try installing Mepis Linux on here and hope I have
better luck without the scourge of all OS's.

Specs:
Dell Dimension 8400
3.0GHz P4
2GB DDR2 533MHz

80GB SATA HD 7200 RPM Samsung


--
llamaPie

 

[Jerry]

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

have you tested the integrity of the drive with the manufacturers test
utility?

"llamaPie" <llamaPie.1jhj7m@news.computerbanter.com> wrote in message
news:llamaPie.1jhj7m@news.computerbanter.com...
>
> Here's the story. I have tried everything in my right mind the last 2
> weeks to get this thing working.
>
> One day window's stopped booting (XP Pro) and even when I went to
> system repair I got blue screened when it was installing the Hardware.
> So in turn I formatted using a Win98 boot disk. From there I managed to
> get the Win98 install going but when I tried upgrading to XP it kept
> crashing on the install and saying it could not find a harddrive. Now--
> I checked a few things. The computer came with a diagnostic tool kit and
> I ran the whole thing and no hardware issues were detected. From there I
> found an SATA driver that I managed to get onto a floppy for this
> particular problem. I loaded the driver up and XP still could not find
> the HD. I'm about to try installing Mepis Linux on here and hope I have
> better luck without the scourge of all OS's.
>
> Specs:
> Dell Dimension 8400
> 3.0GHz P4
> 2GB DDR2 533MHz
>
> 80GB SATA HD 7200 RPM Samsung
>
>
> --
> llamaPie

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

One more thing. Forget using Windows 98, which won't properly support more than
512MB, in addition to the absence of SATA drivers... Ben Myers

On Wed, 26 Jan 2005 16:53:07 +0000, llamaPie
<llamaPie.1jhj7m@news.computerbanter.com> wrote:

>
>Here's the story. I have tried everything in my right mind the last 2
>weeks to get this thing working.
>
>One day window's stopped booting (XP Pro) and even when I went to
>system repair I got blue screened when it was installing the Hardware.
>So in turn I formatted using a Win98 boot disk. From there I managed to
>get the Win98 install going but when I tried upgrading to XP it kept
>crashing on the install and saying it could not find a harddrive. Now--
>I checked a few things. The computer came with a diagnostic tool kit and
>I ran the whole thing and no hardware issues were detected. From there I
>found an SATA driver that I managed to get onto a floppy for this
>particular problem. I loaded the driver up and XP still could not find
>the HD. I'm about to try installing Mepis Linux on here and hope I have
>better luck without the scourge of all OS's.
>
>Specs:
>Dell Dimension 8400
>3.0GHz P4
>2GB DDR2 533MHz
>
>80GB SATA HD 7200 RPM Samsung
>
>
>--
>llamaPie

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

In many ways, SATA is still bleeding edge technology. With the latest XP Pro
even with SP2, you have to load the SATA drivers from separate media.
(Micro$oft service packs generally don't ADD device drivers, only patch up some
more glaring security and reliability holes.) I don't think that Windows 98
drivers will ever exist for SATA. And I think you would need to be careful in
choosing a Linux distro with SATA support.

I would consider running MEMTEST-86 to do a thorough memory diagnostic test and
Samsung's hard disk diagnostics to make sure the drive is OK... Ben Myers

On Wed, 26 Jan 2005 16:53:07 +0000, llamaPie
<llamaPie.1jhj7m@news.computerbanter.com> wrote:

>
>Here's the story. I have tried everything in my right mind the last 2
>weeks to get this thing working.
>
>One day window's stopped booting (XP Pro) and even when I went to
>system repair I got blue screened when it was installing the Hardware.
>So in turn I formatted using a Win98 boot disk. From there I managed to
>get the Win98 install going but when I tried upgrading to XP it kept
>crashing on the install and saying it could not find a harddrive. Now--
>I checked a few things. The computer came with a diagnostic tool kit and
>I ran the whole thing and no hardware issues were detected. From there I
>found an SATA driver that I managed to get onto a floppy for this
>particular problem. I loaded the driver up and XP still could not find
>the HD. I'm about to try installing Mepis Linux on here and hope I have
>better luck without the scourge of all OS's.
>
>Specs:
>Dell Dimension 8400
>3.0GHz P4
>2GB DDR2 533MHz
>
>80GB SATA HD 7200 RPM Samsung
>
>
>--
>llamaPie

 

[ricardo]

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

llamaPie wrote:
> Here's the story. I have tried everything in my right mind the last 2
> weeks to get this thing working.
>
> One day window's stopped booting (XP Pro) and even when I went to
> system repair I got blue screened when it was installing the Hardware.
> So in turn I formatted using a Win98 boot disk. From there I managed to
> get the Win98 install going but when I tried upgrading to XP it kept
> crashing on the install and saying it could not find a harddrive. Now--
> I checked a few things. The computer came with a diagnostic tool kit and
> I ran the whole thing and no hardware issues were detected. From there I
> found an SATA driver that I managed to get onto a floppy for this
> particular problem. I loaded the driver up and XP still could not find
> the HD. I'm about to try installing Mepis Linux on here and hope I have
> better luck without the scourge of all OS's.
>
> Specs:
> Dell Dimension 8400
> 3.0GHz P4
> 2GB DDR2 533MHz
>
> 80GB SATA HD 7200 RPM Samsung
>
>
Have you got the SATA cable connected to SATA 0 connection on the
motherboard. Once that is done get into the BIOS and make sure the
settings for the DISK DRIVES is set to SATA 0. Also make sure you have
set in the IDE/DRIVE selection in the BIOS is set to AHCI.
ricardo