Dell Dimension 2400 Diskette Drive 0 Seek Failure

Dey were Sooted

Hi Folks

As the title says I am having this problem. I have checked the bios battery changed out the cables. Reseated etc into the second slot for the cd/dvd drive. I can always get it to run in either slot after a bit of fiddling but it always fails again. The computer itself can lock up while running. My question is could it be the motherboard or is it worth doing a check on the harddrive . I have connected the harddrive up to another computer and it works away fine ......

thanks in advance
Gav

yoyo

Dey were Sooted wrote: »

Hi Folks

As the title says I am having this problem. I have checked the bios battery changed out the cables. Reseated etc. The computer itself can lock up while running. My question is could it be the motherboard or is it worth doing a check on the harddrive . I have connected the harddrive up to another computer and it works away fine ......

thanks in advance
Gav

Have you tried unplugging the floppy drive/zip disk drive if present?

Nick

Dey were Sooted

yep it's unplugged and i have run the drive in that slot too

BostonB

Suggestion. Test another drive and see does it give the same error. If the board it will. If its the drive it won't.

Dell Dimension 2400 is quite old. I'd replace it with cheap 2nd hand dual core 2 duo rather than spending anytime at it.

Dey were Sooted

will try that thanks - see i bought it there a few months back to use as a downloader/server in the house .... worked perfectly up until now ......

BostonB

Bit of a heater/power soak those P4 though.

Dey were Sooted

it's been a cheap alternative for the moment and i usually only have it on at night - have also just been learning/teaching myself about networks and desktops etc so can't be all bad - tried another drive and i think that maybe the problem - will clone later and see can i get it up and running.

thanks

riclad

GO to bios disable floppy diskette drive, check advanced, boot order ,set hd 0 = first boot device,hd 1 2nd device.
diskette drive = 3.5 inch floppy drive, there,sno reason now to, use them now at all.
OLD pcs check diskette drive for a boot disk, better to just disable it.
sounds like it stops boot on diskette drive, ie its looking for a 3.5inch disk in the drive.
IF they dont overheat,those pcs could last for 7 years or more.
They were well built.
i dont think theres anything wrong with hard drive,
bootup,press del or f2 key to acess bios,setup screen.

bios may have defaulted to boot ,from , or check diskette drive .
its the drive for old 3.5inch floppy discs,
ie its not a hard drive.
http://www.floppydisk.com

Dey were Sooted

thanks all for yer help .

I tried another drive (cheers BostonB) and knew after about four reboots that it was working - so i cloned it with clonzilla this evening - took a while to get the origional drive going again but once it worked clonzilla did the rest - first time using clonezilla and found it to be great . so it's been running away a few hours now and no problems . Seems the drive that failed had trouble getting power to it at times - will have a closer look at the connectors when i get a chance .

Thanks again all for the input.

lynch.ie

Hi,
What type of hard disk? (sata/ide)
What OS?