Help!!

The first one, and I've managed to take a picture of my setup menu as Match had requested earlier.

 

Your new to Technical forums I can tell

Its not that were trying to be awkward or difficult we just need to be sure of you answer, as this information now tells us you have one IDE drive (Big Grey Ribbon Cable) that is set up using jumpers and where its connected to the cable

and one Sata (thin red, cable small connector) drive that is set up in the Bios/System set up

your picture (thanks)

tells us :-

Primary Drive 0 = IDE drive C as seen in your first disk management picture
Primary Drive 1 = (unknown Device) your Sata Drive that's not being recognised

and Secondary Drives which are your CD/DVD drives

on the motherboard where your Sata drive's cable plugs in do you have any more Sata ports? they should be labelled in small writing next to them sata 0, sata 1 sata 2 etc

(if you hadn't blanked your service tag No. I'd have gone to the dell site and retrieved this info , better to be safe than sorry but all you can do with it is get technical info on your machine from when it was shipped and find the right drivers for it, basically it just helps you navigate their support site )

but if you have more than 1 Sata port try plugging you drive into a different one.

Also somewhere in your Bios/System you should have a setting for the Sata controller, we need to check that this is enabled, and that any settings for Raid are disabled, I'll have a look after breakfast to see If I can find where they will be in your Bios Version to help direct you to them

 

@Match
Yeah, I have two extra ports on my Motherboard
As I stated before, Sometimes when I turn my computer, It will pop-up if I'm lucky, which is just what happened.

Idk if this helps, but I have 2 CD/DVD drives :S.

 

Can you please not add new information without fully answering the questions that preceded it.

So now I can see that you have 2 Hdds, 1 CD drive. 1 CD-RW and a floppy. Correct?

Ok now what cables do you have attached and what is attached to each one. When referring to the IDE (ribbon) cable tell us where on the cable a device is attached.

 

Yes, to first question.
Two the second one, what do you mean 'where' on the cable the device is attached? at the end? :S

 

I agree with Ken has to be a cable or connection problem.

If you change the SATA port it connects to on the motherboard and it still does it,

We need to check the power cable all the way back to the Power supply unit,

what would be useful to know is what other devices it connects to and in what order

I assume the cable comes from the PSU to your top CD/DVD optical drive, then to the second optical drive, then to the C (IDE) hard drive, then the D SATA hard drive and finally the A Diskette drive, and mayor may not have branches off to power fans

what we need to do is look for on the Sata HDD that the pins in the plug are in place and still clipped in nice and firm, and its a good form connection into the HDD.

if all that looks OK we need to check that there are no loose connections or wires on the backs of the plugs that connect to other devices

and while typing this and thinking about if my assumption of how its connected is wrong and the Sata HDD is connected last, is it possible to disconnect the power plug from the Diskette drive and use that to connect the Sata drive?

 

Thats actually how its setup, far as connections they all seem to be connected.
I'll try to connect power to the SATA drive if necessary.

 

I hope you mean connect the power connector from the Diskette (A Drive), I would say swap but I would rather you just leave the Diskette drive un-powered for now.

at the moment I have two lines of thought

No 1 is that is it a broken wire bad connector
No 2 Is that the Power Supply is struggling to power everything up during BOOT sequence

So we Give the Sata Drive a 'new' Power Connector Borrowed from the Diskette drive and give the PSU a little less work by disconnecting something from the PSU that's not really needed.

 

Unplugged the diskette drive, and it seems to be working now!
BUT, I don't understand, then how come as in my earlier pictures, it said the other drive was unknown?

 

What is the meaning of life? 46? lol

Bios = Basic input output system, POST = Power on self test, two terms you will hear a lot, when you power up a computer motherboard first thing it does is check what's plugged in and what's not, everything that is plugged in will send a digital signature to the bios to let it know what it is and how it wants to comunicate, if it hadn't quite got enough power then this process wouldn't work properly, a bit like trying to talk to someone across a crowded room, so the Bios would know something was there and it should be a drive of some type but as to actually what, well it never heard the reply to the question.

Back to the PSU, if it's failing this problem will re-occur and you'll need to replace it, if it doesn't then it just simply wasn't powerful enough, no problem in leaving the diskette drive un-plugged as they are obsolete thrown in the junk box with the 5 1/2 inch floppy drive if you can find one though at the right price and your feeling brave you may want to try fitting it, but you will need the right type for your motherboard