General Hardware

Re: WIN XP doesn't recognize HDD's or CD/DVD - can't boot

Mustang1637 — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 02:48:14 GMT

Dear Putzing Around: your instinct that cables might be involved was right on. I did re-check all cables to both the HDD's and CD/DVDs and found that the ribbon cables were not appropriate for "cable select" configuration. Once I reconfigured as master/slave the system booted and I got the primary hard disk and both optical disks back. Not sure why things worked OK for over a month, after HDD upgrade. My old HDD which I was using as secondary drive may be defective. Too tired to investigate further tonight so I'll leave that for another day.

Thanks to you and Pointdoc for your assistance.

Re: WIN XP doesn't recognize HDD's or CD/DVD - can't boot

putzing around — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 02:34:01 GMT

The "unidentified device" is your problem. You could try unplugging and plugging the cables (Power and IDE) back in the units and see if that works. Also check the cables on the motherboard to see if they are loose. Maybe even switch the power cables around (if there are unused ones try using them instead). Do you have another computer that you could plug the drives in to check them out? If you still have problems, the power supply might be bad. Surge protectors can fail too. It doesn't take much to burn out components.

good luck

Re: WIN XP doesn't recognize HDD's or CD/DVD - can't boot

Mustang1637 — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 22:48:45 GMT

XP isn't booting. All I have is an A: prompt and I'm not familiar with command language syntax.

Re: WIN XP doesn't recognize HDD's or CD/DVD - can't boot

paindoc — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 22:41:37 GMT

Mustang..., open control panel, click performance and maintanence, then system. Open the apprpriate tab and see if your hardhare is present and connected. If that is OK, post back.

WIN XP doesn't recognize HDD's or CD/DVD - can't boot

Mustang1637 — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 22:32:07 GMT

I have a Dell 8200 w/1GB, running XP Home SP2. About 1 month ago, I upgraded HDD to Seagate IDE 160GB and moved my old disk to "secondary" role. System has worked fine until yesterday. Suddenly, my hard disks and CD and DVD are not recognized by XP. After the Dell logo screen, I get an error message "strike F1 to retry boot, F2 for set up utility." When I look at the boot sequence, it looks correct execept that all of my devices are listed as "unidentied device". We had a severe thunderstorm the night before my problem was observed, but system is on surge protector and nothing else seemed out of line. Since all of my recovery options/tools are CD based they are useless, since I can't access my HD, CD or DVD. I do have a floppy drive on the system and it works. Does anybody have any advice?