Why won't my Dell Dimension 2400 boot from a CD?

When I turn it on, the DELL screen loads up and after a while, it beeps twice and says:





Primary drive 1 not found


Strike the F1 key to continue, F2 to run the setup utility





If I hit F1, it does nothing. If I hit F2, it goes into the BIOS settings. When I go to the boot menu, it beeps and gives me these options:





1.Normal


2.Hard-Disc Drive C:


3.IDE CD-Rom Device


4.System Setup


5.IDE Drive Diagnostics


6.Boot to Utility Partition





1,2, and 6 basically lead to a blank screen. 3 will do the same thing but I can hear the CD spinning at first. 5 gives this message:





Primary IDE


Drive 0: Maxtor 6Y120P0 - Fail. Return Code: 7


Drive 1: No IDE device





I originally had a second hard drive hooked up and it said: Fail. Return Code: 7 under Drive 1 so I disconnected it hoping to save it.





1.What's wrong?!?


2.Can I use my comp again w/o getting a new hard drive?


3.Are both my drives completely toast?


4.What can I do to recover my files?


5.Is there an online site that can give me more info?

Why won't my Dell Dimension 2400 boot from a CD?
Wow... to have so many drives gone bad at the same time is almost impossible.





Have you tried to move the boot disc onto the same IDE channel as the CD ROM?





You mentioned that the CD ROM seems to be spooling, right? Have you tried to boot with a Windows XP Setup Disc?





Have you had a lightning storm or a electrical surge of some sort?





Sorry about the series of questions. Here is what I am getting at:





If the Primary IDE channel is producing failure codes on both drives... you might not want rule out the motherboard going bad. It is VERY unlikely that you would have 2 disc drives fail at the same time unless there has been a major surge that damaged both of them, but... in that scenario, the motherboard will get fried before the drives would.





My conclusion with the available information thus far is motherboard.....





Good luck.





**** ADDITIONAL INFO ****





For future information, avoid swap harddrives like you are doing (direct IDE installation. Get an external USB/Firewire enclosure and change out harddrive that way.





I am pretty sure you are running NTFS, and depending on cluster size (part of system settings), you can easily corrupt your drives when you swap it from one computer into another one (even if both are XP). Imagine, you have a harddrive that was preformatted by one PC with cluster size x, and it's partially full. Now you plug it into another computer that's trying to write with cluster size y....





External enclosure to make sure both systems recognize the device via USB or Firewire, and the device would make sure it's using the same cluster size, etc...





So... you now have 2 corrupt harddrives. Repair them by putting them in external enclosures and running a data recovery software (www.download.com).





Back to your computer, the fact that it won't even boot into CD ROM tells me the motherboard is very likely to be the culprit.





To be completely certain, use the CD Rom from your 2nd computer to see if it will boot.





If it boots, your problem is a bad CD Rom and 2 corrput harddrives.





If it still doesn't boot, you have a bad motherboard with 2 corrupt harddrives.
Reply:If it won't boot from hard drive or CD, you may have a bad controller on the motherboard causing communication problems. Open the case, then power on the system with the case open. Listen closely to try to hear any clicking noises coming from the hard drive. If there's noise, put your hand up against the drive bay to feel whether the drive is spinning. If it's spinning but not making noise, you should be able to shut down, pull the drive out, and put it in an external USB enclosure to access the files when connecting that enclosure/drive to another PC. I have a similar problem with a customer's Dimension XPS system (about 4 years old), and the problem is the motherboard, not the HD. It won't boot from the HD or the CD. Turns out there was a flood that probably messed up the computer.
Reply:The drive is failing and needs to be replaced. It is a hardware failure. CHKDSK /R will recover bad sectors and you may be able to get your data off of the drive, but it is a software solution that repairs the file system and relocates data out of the bad areas. The bad areas are still there and the drive will eventually fail to the point of no return. Just so we are clear, CHKDSK /R is not a permanent solution on a failing hard drive no matter what Dell might say if u call.
Reply:1. Hard drive crashed


2. No


3. The external drive should be OK, will have to check after fixing computer or hook up and check on another computer.


4. Unless the files where saved to the external hard drive or CD disc they are lost. You can have them recovered by a computer store but it will be expensive and no guaranty.


5. Try the Customer Support for the maker of your computer.