Dell not recognizing HDD

[eyemfedup2]

hey guys
i have a dell that wont recognize hdd
works great in other computers
tried cable select
tried master
even tried putting on secondary,slave, and cable select
all on same ribbon
single ribbon
even tried disconnecting hdd and power up then doing it all over again
bios is set to auto on all
recognizes cd though
got it to try to install os xp once or twice
goes through process looks like it will install
then says cant find hdd press f3
even tried changing bios to something besides auto
restart
then resetting it to auto
optiplex gx 400
reset bios and did it all over again to no avail
tamper jumper is off all the time
successfully installed xp once and worked fine
i don't get it
thanks:dead:

 

[raybay]

You need to go into the setups that you get on the Optiplex using F2 and F12, and slowly carefully reconsider every setting...
Your can reset the entire computer, or you can reset each individual cable and device on a SATA connection.
Keep notes on what you do,..

Alternately, your placing the hard drive in another computer may hbe rendereed it undetectable, and you may need to run a Repair Install of your Dell Windows Disk... (Not the Repair Console)... I am not sure Repair Install will work on that model, unless you have Windows XP MCE or Windows XP Professional... Many Dells will not do the repair install off of Dell Windows XP Home

 

[eyemfedup2]

thanks
got it
i don't know really how
i just kept repeating the steps i mentioned over and over and over
I've had oplipexes before and it did the same thing
the way i fixed those was to disconnect the hdd and on/off on/ off
the reconnect hdd then power on
don't know why or what i did to fix this one
did everything over and over until it gave up LOL