UNSOLVED
Drive 1 not found: Serial ATA, SATA-1
When I boot up, I get a message on the black screen "Drive 1 not found: Serial ATA, SATA -1. Strike F1 to continue, F2 to run the setup utility". When I hit F1, the system (XP SP2), boots up, but my CD/DVD drive is missing (my drive D:). When going to the desktop shortcut for that drive, I get the message "The name D:\ specified iin the Target box is not valid. Make sure the path and file name are correct." The drive does not show up in Device Manager. I have tried using System Restore, but each time I try a valid date, System Restore fails. What is happening, and how do I fix it. I tried using the Dell Support Center wwithout any success. It doesn't seem to be in their database. Please help. (Dell Dimension 9100).
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Posted January 15th, 2008 04:00
I don't know what's going on, but my CD/DVD drive is back. I scan for malware daily, and I don't think that's the issue. Am shutting down for tonight. Let's see what happens when I boot up tomorrow.26824
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Posted January 15th, 2008 20:00
Could you share the solution with us? It might help others who may have a similar problem. Thanks.26824
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Posted January 15th, 2008 20:00
This problem has finally been solved, but it took an online chat with Dell Tech Support, and a phone call from them to fix it. It required going into the Setup Utility and modifying several entries. The Dell Forum is often very helpful, but sometimes the issues are too involved to be solved here. I strongly urge all Forum users to install the Dell Support Center, and use it if simple solutions are not available.26824
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Posted January 15th, 2008 22:00
The caller from tech support had me access the Setup Utility by pressing the F2 key when the Dell screen showed up on restart. He led me through several steps which I did not record, but among other things had me restore some defaults. I would suggest that one should not try to use the Setup Utility without help from tech support, unless you are an advanced techie type user.26824
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Posted January 16th, 2008 02:00
They probably either had Signals clear NVRAM which is what I suggested in my previous post, and/or turn off SATA-1 which I bet doesn't have a hard drive connected to it, and then turn on PATA-0 to enable the optical drive.
Sure sounds like the BIOS settings got scrambled. So clearing NVRAM and rebooting would reset everything. ;)
Ron
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Posted June 10th, 2011 21:00
As RoHe suggested, I went to the Setup Utility, turned off the empty terminals, and made sure all of the active terminals were turned on (mine already were, and all the drives were already working). Brief instructions follow, if anyone else is having the same problem and is feeling brave about doing it themselves:
**in the Setup Menu, to go [Drives] (initially not expanded; strike "enter" to expand the group)
**scroll through the drives and look at the details for each drive (0-5 on my computer):
--any full port will give details about the drive attached, and should be [On] (hit enter to get to the on/off toggle)
--any empty port will have "Controller details" but no "Drive details", and should be [Off] to avoid this problem at startup.
--that did it for me! (I had to turn 1 and 3 off)
Happy debugging! I hope this helps someone!
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Posted May 7th, 2012 14:00
I had the same problem. Found out the motherboard battery needed to be replaced
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Posted August 8th, 2012 13:00
The link is outdated, but clearing the NVRAM totally worked for me. Thank you!
RoHe
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Posted January 14th, 2008 23:00
Do you have more than 1 hard drive inside this system? And/or is the optical drive a serial or parallel ATA drive?
You can try clearing NVRAM following the procedure for your model, here:
http://www.dellcommunity.com/supportforums/board/message?board.id=dim_bios&thread.id=55387
Have you scanned for malware lately?
Ron