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Hello all,

This is an issue that has been bugging me for a while now. I have a
Dell Latitude X200 that recently lost an HD. I replaced it with a
Samsung 30GB drive and all seemed well. I installed Windows XP and
then a very strange problem occurred. If the machine is rebooted, BIOS
will hang at the prompts to hit F2 to enter setup and F12 for Boot list
and after a minute or two, will throw the error that "No Operating
System Found". If I power off the machine and power it on, it works
perfectly every single time. If I reboot, both from Windows, or even
from a Knoppix CD, the HD isn't seen by BIOS.

It seemed to me to be a BIOS issue since it would not let me get into
BIOS after rebooting... I'd have to cold boot for F2 to work. I
flashed the BIOS with the latest (A09) from Dell's website and it did
nothing to correct the problem. I've tried disabling all extra ports
and peripherals in BIOS to no avail. Any ideas folks?

As reference, the power requirements for the new Samsung drive are
about half the requirements for the old TravelStar that was in there
before.

Thanks in Advance,
Mike

How are your BIOS settings for IDE/ATAPI devices set ? or do you
even have any options in that regard. Usually, Dell masks out the BIOS
display of IDE devices with their Splash screen.

It's possible the Samsung is not spinning up quickly enough for BIOS
to detect it's presence. Before you installed the replacement did you
check/set the jumpers on the new disk. On 2.5" drives the jumper field
may be on the electronics board on the bottom side of the drive. I
would go to Samsungs site and get the PDF install/manual for the drive
and check settings.

If possible, I would manually define the IDE Channel/Tap that the
Samsung drive is on, so it doesn't need to Autodetect it at each boot.

"Mike" <> wrote in message
news: oups.com...
> Hello all,
>
> This is an issue that has been bugging me for a while now. I have a
> Dell Latitude X200 that recently lost an HD. I replaced it with a
> Samsung 30GB drive and all seemed well. I installed Windows XP and
> then a very strange problem occurred. If the machine is rebooted, BIOS
> will hang at the prompts to hit F2 to enter setup and F12 for Boot list
> and after a minute or two, will throw the error that "No Operating
> System Found". If I power off the machine and power it on, it works
> perfectly every single time. If I reboot, both from Windows, or even
> from a Knoppix CD, the HD isn't seen by BIOS.
>
> It seemed to me to be a BIOS issue since it would not let me get into
> BIOS after rebooting... I'd have to cold boot for F2 to work. I
> flashed the BIOS with the latest (A09) from Dell's website and it did
> nothing to correct the problem. I've tried disabling all extra ports
> and peripherals in BIOS to no avail. Any ideas folks?
>
> As reference, the power requirements for the new Samsung drive are
> about half the requirements for the old TravelStar that was in there
> before.
>
> Thanks in Advance,
> Mike
>

Well, from a cold start, the drive seems to spin up quick enough to
allow BIOS to see it and I assumed the drive continued to spin through
a reboot but I guess it is possible the computer interrupts power
momentarily. If I <TAB> past the splash screen I do in fact notice
that BIOS skips detection of the HD and then throws the operating
system error. But if I shut the machine off, and turn it right back
on, BIOS detects it perfectly fine and fast.

There are no options in BIOS to speak of regarding HD settings, which
is quite annoying as it'd be nice if there was at least the throw-back
to the days of IDE Pre-Delay.

I checked Samsung's sight for a manual and turned of was was
essentially the little 4x3 notecard that came with the drive. It
describes jumper settings and such but this is a laptop, with a single
IDE connection for the HD and both the old drive and this drive are set
to "master". The only other option I can set it to that makes sense is
cable select but that seems like it'd complicate the situation.

Do you know if there is a way to envoke some kind of "Expert" mode on
the Dell BIOS's?

I'm also going to try running the Samsung Utility on the drive as well
as Dell Diagnostics to see if that reveals any hidden settings.

Thanks so much for the quick reply!

Unfortunately, Dell BIOS settings are fairly limited in scope. You didn't
mention the model #, but I would check Dell's website and see what the
current BIOS firmware version is. It's hard to globally recommend a
BIOS flash update, but in your case it might be warranted. Most times a
drive is a drive, but every vendor has differing specifications and you may
have one of those, "Won't work if, then,else" type of situations. I would
check the BIOS setup (Advanced or Peripheral - if it exists) and check
the IDE controller settings. The new drive is probably a UDMA mode 4
drive and should work with older IDE controller settings.
Good Luck and be patient - I really dislike these operations which should
work and you end up spending time working out all the Quirks & Anomalies.

"Mike" <> wrote in message
news: oups.com...
> Well, from a cold start, the drive seems to spin up quick enough to
> allow BIOS to see it and I assumed the drive continued to spin through
> a reboot but I guess it is possible the computer interrupts power
> momentarily. If I <TAB> past the splash screen I do in fact notice
> that BIOS skips detection of the HD and then throws the operating
> system error. But if I shut the machine off, and turn it right back
> on, BIOS detects it perfectly fine and fast.
>
> There are no options in BIOS to speak of regarding HD settings, which
> is quite annoying as it'd be nice if there was at least the throw-back
> to the days of IDE Pre-Delay.
>
> I checked Samsung's sight for a manual and turned of was was
> essentially the little 4x3 notecard that came with the drive. It
> describes jumper settings and such but this is a laptop, with a single
> IDE connection for the HD and both the old drive and this drive are set
> to "master". The only other option I can set it to that makes sense is
> cable select but that seems like it'd complicate the situation.
>
> Do you know if there is a way to envoke some kind of "Expert" mode on
> the Dell BIOS's?
>
> I'm also going to try running the Samsung Utility on the drive as well
> as Dell Diagnostics to see if that reveals any hidden settings.
>
> Thanks so much for the quick reply!
>