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Strange Situation with "No boot device available" Issue
My Dell Vostro 400 desktop computer running XP/SP2 has two 500GB SATA hard drives: the boot drive is on SATA 0, while the second hard drive is on SATA 5. the two CD-ROMs are on SATA 1 and SATA 4 (SATA ports 2 and 3 are not present.) Starting a few days ago: the computer will not boot; it simply displays on the monitor this text (approximately, as best I can recall):
CD-ROM
CD-ROM
No boot device available
Sata 0: installed
Sata 1: installed
Sata 4: installed
Sata 5: installed
I tried reseating all of the hard-drive SATA cables, drive power connectors, and boards attached to the motherboard (two memory, one video adapter, one modem) to no avail.
The computer will boot from the CD-ROM (pressing F12 at the Dell screen and selecting CD-ROM) when the Dell XP Reinstallation disk is present. In this case the computer boots up into Windows normally and all seems to be working fine. If the installation disk is removed and the system is rebooted (with the normal boot sequence), the problem described above returns.
Here is what's odd: On a whim, I switched the hard-drive SATA cables between the hard drives (just the connectors of the cables that attach to the drives, not the cable connectors that attach to the motherboard, which were left in place along with the power connectors), so that the boot hard drive now was connected to SATA 5 and the secondary hard drive was connected to SATA 0. To my surprise, with the drives connected this way, the computer will boot normally and the problem does not arise (not yet, at least!)
What's happening here? Can I reliably use my computer in this configuration?
Any insights will be much appreciated!
Thanks,
Tevya
DELL-John C
7 Practitioner
•
353 Posts
2010
0
Posted July 19th, 2012 02:00
Hi there,
Could you post what is shown in the System Setup screen? To do this, please switch the system on and press F2 at the Dell Splash Screen to enter the system setup. Here, please navigate to the Boot Device Configuration section and list what is shown in the following sections:
1) First Boot Device
2) Second Boot Device
3) Third Boot Device
4) Boot Other Device
After this, please highlight Hard Disk Boot Priority and list what you see here.
I'm just look to see if there's any setting in the BIOS that can cause this behaviour that you're experiencing. If you've got any problems with this step, please let me know!
Hi John, thanks for responding!
Here is what the Boot-Device-Configuration section reports:
1) First Boot Device: [Removable]
2) Second Boot Device: [Hard Disk]
3) Third Boot Device: [CDROM]
4) Boot Other Device: [Enabled]
5) Boot Menu Security: [Disabled]
The Hard-Disk-Priority listing is the following:
1. SATA-5: WDC WD5000AAKS-75A7B0
2. SATA-0: WDC WD5000AAKS-00YGA0
3. Bootable Add-in Cards
Tevya
DELL-John C
7 Practitioner
•
353 Posts
2010
0
Posted July 20th, 2012 03:00
What I'd now like to double-check is what happens in the Boot Device Configuration section if you have the system back to its original setup - i.e. the bootable hard drive back in SATA 0. If you can do this and then go back to Boot Device Configuration screen and tell me exactly what you see again, it would be a great help.
Thanks for the post, hope to hear from you soon!
Hi John,
Here is what the Boot-Device-Configuration section reports with the bootable drive back in SATA 0:
1) First Boot Device: [Removable]
2) Second Boot Device: [Hard Disk]
3) Third Boot Device: [CDROM]
4) Boot Other Device: [Enabled]
5) Boot Menu Security: [Disabled]
The Hard-Disk-Priority listing is the following:
1. SATA-5: WDC WD5000AAKS-00YGA0
2. SATA-0: WDC WD5000AAKS-75A7B0
3. Bootable Add-in Cards
Note that while the bootable drive (75A7B0) now is reported back in SATA 0, and the secondary drive (00YGA0) in SATA 5, I cannot change the hard-drive priority (i.e., by highlighting a drive and using the "+" or "-" keys to move the highlighted drive to a new position.) FYI, in this section I've never been able to change the hard-drive priority, either on this computer or in the setup on my other Dell Vostro 400 computer (which is operating normally and also has two hard drives, one bootable.) I do not know how the hard drive priority on the problematic computer got changed to give first priority to SATA 5 in place of SATA 0. A mystery!
With the drives back in their original SATA ports (bootable in SATA 0, secondary in SATA 5) the problem described in my original posting returns. FYI, I tried replacing the SATA cable that plugged into the SATA 0 port with a new SATA cable, but the problem persists.
When I change back to the modified configuration (reversing the hard drives so that the bootable drive is in SATA 5 and the secondary drive in SATA 0), the problem goes away and the computer boots up into Windows with no apparent problems.
It looks like the only way my computer will run is with the reversed drive configuration. In using it this way for a few days, I have not encountered any apparent problems. Any pitfalls in doing so?
Thanks,
Tevya
DELL-John C
7 Practitioner
•
353 Posts
2010
0
Posted July 23rd, 2012 03:00
It is a strange situation, especially if you cannot alter the hard disk priority to allow the hard drive in SATA port 0 to boot first. There should be no problems in leaving the bootable hard drive in SATA 5 but what may help is updating the BIOS. If you download the BIOS update from the following link: www.dell.com/.../DriverFileFormats
Let me know how you get on!
DELL-John C
7 Practitioner
•
353 Posts
2010
0
Posted July 24th, 2012 03:00
Hi Tevya,
No problem at all - if you do need any help, don't hesitate to get back in touch!
I am following this thread as I have the exact same problem with my Optiplex GX620 .No matter what I do I cannot get the computer to boot into windows without having the Win CD in the DVD player. I switched hard drives, DVD players. I for some reason cannot update my bios. Keeps coming up with an error-Hope to get this fixed soon. Just frustrating.
celavey
49 Posts
2010
0
Posted July 18th, 2012 20:00
Is it not possible to change the primary device that will boot on BIOS?