I'm confused. Is booting into the bios an option in setup (f1)?
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I am working on a Dell Dimension 8300 that originally had two hard drives s/u with cable select. C: was a Maxtor 300GB and D: was a Seagate 40GB. My plan is to install the Win XP Pro SP2 on the Seagate (will now be C:) and add the Maxtor as the second drive. (I have to move the stuff off the Maxtor to my other computer but wanted to get started on loading the O/S, etc.) It appears the only way the IDE channel "likes" the jumper settings to be is cable select. Any other way the bios does not recognize a hard disk at all. So, I think I have re-installed Win XP Pro, but when I restart the machine, it says "No master or secondary disks found. Press F1 to continue or F2 to enter setup". If I hit F2, the bios is showing the hard drive; and alternatively when I press F1, I get to windows. So, how do I get rid of this message? Is it left over from the old configuration or cached?
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There was no place to modify the settings any further in the set up menu than what I had already done. The problem was resolved by CLEARING THE CMOS. I tried all the other things first and in my desperation I finally moved the jumper and VIOLA! the computer recognized the current configuration. Sorry. I figured this one out by myself! mhs
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by: CallandorPosted on 2006-10-13 at 10:55:43ID: 17726245
Try booting into the BIOS, autodetect each drive, and save the settings. It should stop thinking there are no drives; if it doesn't, you may need a new CMOS battery.