Move the recovery jumper from 1-2 to 2-3, power on, power off and replace.

 

There is a jumper on the mainboard normally shorted at pins 1-2.  Power off, open the case, move it to 2-3, power on briefly, then power off and replace to 1-2.

 

Thanks but I don't understand what you are talking about. What does 1-2 and 2-3 mean? please elaborate.

thelowman

Your model's User Guide will explain how to put the machine into Maintenance Mode to clear the NVRAM.  If you no longer have the User Guide available this link here is to an on-line version of the guide and will detail what Ejn63 has explained.

Thanks for the clarification. I successfully reset NVRAM but it didn't fix my problem.

I decided to try reinstalling Windows ME again and this time it took. The entire installation went off without a hitch (even the reboots). When installation was complete and I rebooted, I got nothing. Just the dell logo screen for 2 minutes and then the message that C:\windows\blahblahblah was missing or corrupt. How could it be missing or corrupt when I had just reinstalled it?

Just for the heck of it, I replaced the primary IDE cable, reset NVRAM again and tried to boot up. I immediately got the message "Invalid boot diskette, insert boot diskette in a:"

At this point, I'm ready to bring it to a repair shop. Anyone have any other ideas?

Thanks,
Steve

 

Sounds like a dying hard drive.  Test it with either the Dell diagnostics, or with the utility from the manufacturer for that purpose.

 

I tested the hard drive with dell diagnostics. After one hour and 45 minutes there were 0 errors. The only error that popped up was that the free space was incorrectly calculated which I had the diagnostics program fix.

I was just reading more of the troubleshooting guide and I was unaware of the lights on the backpanel. I'm going to check that out tonight.

Sounds like the hard disk is indeed intermittently failing.   This may or may not show up predictably using diags.

Try defaulting your BIOS (F9) and then clearing the NVRAM from within BIOS (advanced/boot config/'reset configuration data' to 'yes').

Try the install again if you're using a boot disk, if you're booting from the CD, go back into BIOS and change the boot order as needed.

Also, FWIW, unplug and reseat your power and data connections to your hard disk, and the IDE1 ribbon to the mb.

Good luck.

Thanks for all of your help.

It turns out that the hard drive is cooked. I didn't realize it at the time but the system was running all of it's checks on my secondary drive which changed from D: to C: when the primary drive could not be accessed.

I'm going to buy a new HD today and reload everything.

Thanks again,

Steve

Hi,

I'd also put a new BIOS battery CR 2032 Lithium Cell in, along with a new IDE ribbon cable, 40 wire unless you are using an additional ATA control card that requires 80 wire cables.

Ceri.