DELL DIMENSION 4100 & DELL MONITOR E773s: Boot failiure & blank monitor

OK, so use the basic default setup but set your year, date & time and then auto-detect your HDD. You may have some different options for type of Floppy Drive which you can check if you want. In any event, Save and Exit (F10) and then see if you can boot to an operating system.

 

Rockster2U's post is right on the money.

Just to eliminate external device problems altogether, I would leave any and all drives: hard drive, floppy, and CD or DVD disconnected from the power supply as well as disconnected from the ribbon cables. I would also pull the drive ribbon cables from the motherboard.

So essentially you only have the basic components to make your BIOS visible:
* Motherboard
* Video
* RAM
* CPU
* Power supply

Also, if this computer has onboard video, plug your monitor in there. Get rid of any extra video cards if they are present. If not, you'll have to use the video card thats there. If you have another video card laying around that you know works and your computer does not have on board video then try swapping the video card.

If none of this works its on to troubleshoot down to one of your basic components
* Motherboard
* Video
* RAM
* CPU
* Power supply

Good luck

 

Hi Eric,

MLP has started a new thread in the XP Forum regarding the same (or a very similar system )

It looks like the hardware issues are resolved but he's now having difficulty erasing the existing partitions on the hard drive.

Perhaps you or Rockster could look in, I've offered all the assistance I can.

 

All is well - PC is working fine - for legacy hardware! HD still *****, but has an OS up and running for now. Thank you all so much for your help! I appreciate how quickly you all responded to help me - Have an awesome day!

 

Sorry - didn't know that I couldn't say S*cks!