Hello.... I'm a newbie here so be gentle. My name is Julie and I am a computer addict.

Okay... got any free advice?

Day before yesterday I installed a new hard drive WDC, 80 GB, partitioned C & D) on my PC and then installed the old one as a slave in order to get all my data off of it, SINCE I think it's going bad. It would not boot up past the Dell splash screen. After some dithering around I figured out that I had neglected to change the new WD HD from "cable select" to "master"- once I did that it was okay. Booted up fine; WinXP okay, etc.

And now it is doing it again. I don't even have all my programs & things installed yet; I was SAVING that job for the weekend.

I turned it on this MORNING. And it went to the Dell splash screen… and once again hung there. And hung there, and hung there.

Maybe it’s just taking awhile, I thought, so I l putzed around doing other stuff for about 5-7 minutes. But when I came back in, it was still at the Dell screen. Aw, %$#&!!!

I did a manual REBOOT- or, I should say, a turn-off and back on, since the tower does not have a reset button- and it did the same thing… hung there at the Dell screen. It hung there again for over 5 minutes. I finally gave up. I was getting mad and I have high blood pressure.  

I went to the back of the computer and peered at it, seeing nothing amiss.
I finally thought Well, I’ll try and get into the system setup or BIOS or whatever, and more out of desperation than anything else, turned off the power at my APC battery backup thingie. I waited a minute and let the dang thing stew, then turned it back on. It went up to the Dell screen and I was going to hit the Del key, but it got out of the Dell screen and then booted the rest of the way up normally.

After that I left it on. I had to leave for work. I have no idea why it’s doing this, if it will do it again, or what I can do about it.

Do you think it would help if I took the old HDD back out? Could it be the motherboard (shuddering)?

I'm totally out of ideas.

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System Info:
Dell Dimension 4400 1.7 GHz, 384 MB RAM
WinXP Home, SP-2

Thanks!

Julie Dell's are really particular about having BOTH hard drives jumpered to cable select (CS). The primary drive should then be on the connector farthest from the motherboard. I think this will cure all of the problems. (Except the dying drive MAY continue to wither)I'll give that a shot as soon as I get home!
Thanks a lot!I pronounce you cured.


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