Dell 8250 won't boot up

[Mike Hunt]

I have a dell 8250 pc that won't boot up. When I turn the power on it tries to boot but says it cannot see the hard drive. This pc has windows xp. This an IDE unit. I purchased another dell 8250 that has windows xp also, but has bare bones programs. What I would like to know is, can I use my old hard drive in the newer pc and boot from that or do I have to use my old hard drive as a slave on the newer system ? Also would I be able to retrieve my emails from outlook. Any ideas ?

 

[mailpup]

I have a Dell 8250 although that doesn't make me an expert on that PC by any means. I think the first hard drive may have failed. Try putting it into the second Dell and see if it recognizes it. Keep in mind that rather than master and slave, Dell used cable select, at least they did at that time.