I've lost the use of my hard drive on my Dell Dimension 8400. During a shutdown, the power flipped off. When I tried to boot back up I got the following message: "Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt:" \Windows\System32\Config\System Normally that's a registry problem. Notice there is not a c: preceding the message. I have done the following. 1. Put XP Professional Install CD (OEM) in to try the recovery console. Once started it could not find a hard drive. (booted from CD) 2. Ran XP setup and it could not find a hard drive. (booted from CD) 3. Checked BIOS settings. It does find the hard drive on SATA 0, reports the brand and SN of the drive. 4. Ran Dell diagnostic CD, all works fine. Hard drive passed all tests. 5. Tried booting with a floppy disk. Once it started, it will not see any c: drive. 6. Tried unseating and reseating all connections to the motherboard and hard drive Any ideas where to turn next? It appears the drive and the data is intact on the hard drive, it just can't be seen. What am I missing to do. As it stands now, even if I wanted to do a reformat (really would like to avoid as last backup was a month ago), I can't because the computer will not recognize I have a hard drive Any help or suggestions is appreciated. David
My best advice would be to unplug the HD and then start the computer so that it looses the memory of the HD. Once that is done then turn it off, reconnect everything then restart as if you were installing the HD for the first time. Craig
Already tried doing that also. Did not change anything. Correct me if I'm wrong, but since the BIOS sees the HD and can detect it's make and SN, the SATA connection on the motherboard would not be the problem?
1. Put XP Professional Install CD (OEM) in to try the recovery console. Once started it could not find a hard drive. (booted from CD) Strange. Since verifying that it showed up in the BIOS, have you tried this step again? However... (see below) 2. Ran XP setup and it could not find a hard drive. (booted from CD) Did you build this image yourself? If so, did you have to use special drivers for the storage controller? If so (used that twice!), restart for recovery console but press F6 (when requested) to feed it the necessary driver. 3. Checked BIOS settings. It does find the hard drive on SATA 0, reports the brand and SN of the drive. Good news. 4. Ran Dell diagnostic CD, all works fine. Hard drive passed all tests. Better news. 5. Tried booting with a floppy disk. Once it started, it will not see any c: drive. Correct. Since you're using XP, you're most likely using NTFS. It is not "visible" to DOS without special software. (Also, if you require special drivers, it won't appear either.) 6. Tried unseating and reseating all connections to the motherboard and hard drive. Never a bad idea. Restart into recovery console. If your drive still doesn't show up, track down the necessary drivers (on floppy) press F6 when requested, and load the drivers you need, then proceed to recovery console. At the console prompt enter "chkdsk /r" (no quotes) and press enter. It may take awhile. I have a pretty high success rate using this method. (And to your latest, your SATA controller does appear to be working properly.)
Update: Based on what I'm seeing for this model on the Dell support site, you're going to need drivers. Download this file and run it to create your driver floppy. http://support.dell.com/support/dow...2&vercnt=2&formatcnt=1&libid=41&fileid=108901
Thanks... I had donwloaded those at work earlier today and plan to try them tonight. The person that guided me to these (I know a good deal about computers, but it never occured to me that the drivers were needed as I thought the SATA controller on the MB did the work) says it has to be an internal floppy, not a USB. But my external floppy worked last night in trying to boot from diskette, so I'm goingto give a try. There is no internal floppy on my computer. I may have to take a floppy out of one of old computers just to get it running (of course that means tracking down more drivers).
If you're putting a legacy floppy in, there are no additional drivers needed. (However, your co-worker is right. Odds are low that an external USB will be recognized by the Windows installer.)
