Given a dell dimension 8100 with weird problem.....

[MJGunn]

On startup, it'll sit at the bios screen for about 30-45 seconds, before giving this error.....

Primary hard disk drive 1 not found
Secondary hard disk drive 1 not found
Strike F1 to continue, or F2 to run setup utility

If I hit F1, the computer continues on and boots normally. Checked the bios, didn't see anything odd in there. To double check, I tried a different hard drive, and a different IDE cable. Anyone have any suggestions?

 

[HappyPuppy]

Are the hard drives connected to the primary IDE controller? Someone may have mistakenly connected them to the secondary controller.

 

[johnjkr1]

I worked at dell and saw this problem all the time. Basically, you want to set the channels you are not using to none, or off. If they are set to auto, and dont find a device, you get that error message. 0 is for the primary drive, 1 is for the secondary

 

[MJGunn]

Sweet, it worked. Thanks for the help. Now I have an extra machine that I have no use for

 

[johnjkr1]

It could fetch you some nice cash$$$$ to buy stuff with!!!