My Dell 8200will not boot into windows.When I go into setup it says that the hard disk and the cd-rom are not installed. Can someone tell me what is wrong and how to fix it. It is aDell 8200 with 5120Mb Pc 800 RdRam, 80GB EIDE hard drive(7200 RPM),PCI Ethernet Card,XP home. Thank You for your help Tom:confused:

Recommended Answers

All 4 Replies

Seems like a hardware failure. Either you have dead HD, optical drive, IDE cable or IDE controller. First 3 can be replaced. Last one is embedded in the motherboard.

My first bet is optical drive. They have the shortest lifespan.

Are you sure that the drives are not disabled in BIOS?
Did you make any changes on your Dell recently?

Thank You Chaky, there have not been any changes made to the 8200 recently. The problem started while it was in safe mode, it shut down and then had the problem starting. I was able to start it twice while trying to correct the problem by reinstalling windows and now it will not start. I don't know about the bios nor how to check it but I guess I have a lot of work to do.

Please specify what Dell 8200 is it. (Dimension or Inspiron)
Also, specify if you receive any beep codes.

i got a d5150 and it has similar problems - cant find the cd (although hdd is ok) - turned out to be loose connection and crap wires

maybe the BIOS battery has died?

Be a part of the DaniWeb community

We're a friendly, industry-focused community of developers, IT pros, digital marketers, and technology enthusiasts meeting, networking, learning, and sharing knowledge.