Can't Boot from CD tried everyting?

[gmcjetpilot]

Dell OptiPlex GX260. The Hard Drive that is formatted I think, bought a new used one one.

I have the BIOS set to boot from:
CD,
A:
hard drive

During boot it says can't find primary drive. I can get it to find the A: drive. On the BIOS setup it says CD drive not installed (it was working before I took the original hard drive out). The Hard drive shows and gives the size.

I checked the jumper, cables and nothing. I was able to get it to boot from the Win XP CD drive at one time but something has happened. I am tempted to pull another hard drive out of another computer.

 

[Nanobyte]

......The Hard Drive that is formatted I think, bought a new used one one........

Does that mean you obtained a used drive that was already formatted and you just stuck it in your PC? Alternatively, the whole PC is a used model you just bought and you are trying to start for the first time?

 

[gmcjetpilot]

Does that mean you obtained a used drive that was already formatted and you just stuck it in your PC? Alternatively, the whole PC is a used model you just bought and you are trying to start for the first time?

Right here is the long story. I have a dell GX260 and GX270. I wanted to move all the hardware into the GX270. Well I was more motivated when the GX260's prim hard drive had a hiccup, while I was using it. I recovered by overlaying a new WinXP installation (XP wouldn't let me repair it).

I transplanted of all the hardware, second big drive to the GX270. When I tried to boot the GX260 it would not boot (I thought it was the HD failing). The GX260 was reading the CD/DVD drive for a while but could not get past the new installation of XP on the old hard drive.

After a while the CD/DVD just was not working and the computer never would find the hard drive (it was there in BIOS but not doing anything). BIOS says CD is not installed. So I took the hrad drive out, made it a slave on another computer, re-partitioned and format it (I THINK)? Any way same problem the computer will no longer boot form the CD/DVD and hard drive not found. It's possible the CD/DVD died. The A: drive works.

I bought a new used Hitachi Desk Star 160GB PATA drive. It is not recognized. Even so the CD is not booting.

This is what I took out of the GX260 to put in the GX270.
WiFi card
Video Card
TV Hauppauge Card
500 GB hard drive

I put back a different brand of video card but same
model FX 6200, into the GX260. I was thinking of
just taking the card out and booting to the stock
on the mother board video output. The only thing
I can think of is the CD/DVD drive failed. So I am
thinking about taking another drive out of another
machine and putting in this one.

 

[johnb35]

Check your jumpers on the hard drive and cdrom. Are they hooked up the same cable or different cables? If they are on the same cable then set the hard drive to master and the cdrom to slave. If they are on separate cables put both set to master.

 

[gmcjetpilot]

Check your jumpers on the hard drive and cdrom. Are they hooked up the same cable or different cables? If they are on the same cable then set the hard drive to master and the cdrom to slave. If they are on separate cables put both set to master.

Thanks for the tip but the DVD/CD drive was working and the cables and jumper got double checked, wiggled and they are good. Thanks for the tip, just responding to fill in the blank.