PC no bootee, but drives visible

It's an old Dell Inspiron. Has i3 sticker on, but somebody upgraded to i5.
Will not boot from hard disk or CD. The drives show up in BIOS.
The Dell has diagnostic in boot menu, which tests RAM and drives.
Althought these are "DST" short tests, which don't appear to do a scan.
Swapped the drives over to other SATA ports, no help. Then plugged in
another DVD drive, that will not boot either.
So it is some weird fault - the drives say yes I am here, but aren't
dispatching a functioning boot sector?
Anyway, it will probably go to recycling yard. Just curious if anybody
else has had similar hassles.

wrote:
It's an old Dell Inspiron. Has i3 sticker on, but somebody upgraded to i5.
Will not boot from hard disk or CD. The drives show up in BIOS.
The Dell has diagnostic in boot menu, which tests RAM and drives.
Althought these are "DST" short tests, which don't appear to do a scan.
Swapped the drives over to other SATA ports, no help. Then plugged in
another DVD drive, that will not boot either.
So it is some weird fault - the drives say yes I am here, but aren't
dispatching a functioning boot sector?
Anyway, it will probably go to recycling yard. Just curious if anybody
else has had similar hassles.

In the XP group, we had an Optiplex doing something
like that. Tried all sorts of stuff (pulling CMOS battery),
and no dice. So the problem might not actually be in the
contents of the CMOS RAM (which gets reset, if you
remove the battery with all power removed).

On normal computers, flaky behavior like that is
sometimes traceable to crap in the CMOS.

Would it be something to do with DMI/ESCD storage in
the BIOS flash chip ? Dunno. Those are inventory things
that store "what the BIOS detected" for future usage.
After enough cycles, the flash storage for those
could fail.

And you don't exactly have a lot of debug options, if
you can't make it boot.

Even the USB boot behavior on those machines is strange.

Yes, a Dell will boot from USB, but if you have two USB
things connected, you can't select one of them. Your
best option is to have just one bootable USB item in
that case.

I would try to say something more encouraging, if
I could have found a solution. It had a mind of its
own.

Paul

On Mon, 4 Nov 2019 00:39:15 -0800 (PST), wrote:

It's an old Dell Inspiron. Has i3 sticker on, but somebody upgraded to i5.
Will not boot from hard disk or CD. The drives show up in BIOS.
The Dell has diagnostic in boot menu, which tests RAM and drives.
Althought these are "DST" short tests, which don't appear to do a scan.

I would disconnect all hard drives and optical drives, and remove all USB
storage devices. Then, with only a USB stick with Memtest86 on it, try to
boot Memtest86. You may have to tweak the BIOS settings to get it to boot.
If you suspect CMOS corruption, look for a Clear CMOS jumper on the
motherboard. I've never had to remove a CMOS battery just to clear CMOS.

Speaking of disconnecting things, check if there are any add-on cards in
any of the slots. If so, remove them since they can stop a system from
booting if they are malfunctioning. Simplify the system as much as
possible. I had a case, years ago, where removing all but one memory stick
finally allowed the system to boot, so remove as many potential obstacles
as possible. I also had a case, more recently, where the PSU was failing.
So if you have a spare PSU, try that, as well.

Swapped the drives over to other SATA ports, no help. Then plugged in
another DVD drive, that will not boot either.

You didn't mention what you tried to boot from, so be sure those CDs or
DVDs are actually bootable.

On Mon, 4 Nov 2019 00:39:15 -0800 (PST), wrote:

It's an old Dell Inspiron. Has i3 sticker on, but somebody upgraded to i5.
Will not boot from hard disk or CD. The drives show up in BIOS.
The Dell has diagnostic in boot menu, which tests RAM and drives.
Althought these are "DST" short tests, which don't appear to do a scan.
Swapped the drives over to other SATA ports, no help. Then plugged in
another DVD drive, that will not boot either.
So it is some weird fault - the drives say yes I am here, but aren't
dispatching a functioning boot sector?
Anyway, it will probably go to recycling yard. Just curious if anybody
else has had similar hassles.


The Inspiron series versions as they apply to Dell's customized
"MediaDirect" are written for Dell specifically and for Dell's
exclusive licensing usages. MediaDirect thus reacts, in turn, with
the HDD's Host Protected Area -- which again in turn must be a
contingency to Dell's BIOS (and controller).

There is indeed controversy from Dell customers buying a laptop that
Dell effectively bricks itself because Dell doesn't want you, a
customer, to upgrade or add standard storage devices which haven't
first been modified by Dell for exclusive Dell control.

How you may -or not- solve this intended and designed problem may be
provided by either a Dell or OEM/user afterthought;- Not all Inspiron
models, evidently, would similarly meet Dell's upstanding and
principled engineering. (IBM laptops, for what they're worth, are
neither apparently immune to non-standard and manipulative practices.)
In any event -- an Inspiron model, you stand some chance of owning, is
listed he
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dell_MediaDirect

Whereas Dell, among laptop manipulators and their re-definitions for
hard drive and storage controller marketing, how they deviate from an
earlier industrial standard, are defined he
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Host_protected_area


Of course it helps to know these things when walking into junkyards.
My tablet, my first such device, I should have paid perhaps half what
I did pay for it, is a *highly proprietary* device. That would entail
along a mandatory W10 or default OS assumptions at times are for
online connectivity for further seller modifications. In my case
there is some evidence that such activity is intended to break the
device, rendering it useless for the seller's purpose, given their
strong online positioning is in itself as much the product, such that
a repurchase of the handheld is indeed a consequent contingency if not
assurance to breaking it in the first place.

Short of and past a successful rootkit OS modification by a user:
rendering it for a non-connective device and adding some limited
personal computer operability, the modest cost I paid seems more in
line with what computers practically actually are able to do and what
a middle-layer of technological suppliers would like to think what
users ought, according to their criteria, in fact be able to do.