Greetings!
As my userid might imply, I am new at this . . . After reading
through some of the postings, I am further humbled!
Recently purchased a Dell Dimension 8300 with more bells & whistles
than I will ever comprehend ( but I am an avid learner! ). . .
Shortly after setting up, began to receive a
" Alert! System battery voltage is low " message . . .
Contacted Mfg/Vendor . . . opened case, made sure all connectors,
battery, etc., seated properly . . .
Now on boot ( but only intermittently!? ) I receive the following
message:
" Primary drive 0 not found Primary drive 1 not found
Secondary drive 0 not found Secondary drive 1 not found "
Eventually I am able ( not sure how )to get system to recognize
all drives, including the hard drive, CD-ROM drive, & DVD
drive . . . when above occurs, no drive lights flash on hard
drive, CD-ROM, or DVD drives . . .
Mfg wants to dispatch technician to replace hard drive . . .
Does this sound prudent? Please assist!
Thank you in advance!

Hi rookie999, and welcome to http://www.pcguide.com/ubb/pcgubb.gif

No, this does not sound prudent. First thing I would do is replace the battery on the motherboard. They're usually just little watch batteries and cost only a few dollars. That might just do the trick.

Having a bad hard drive isn't likely to make your BIOS unable to detect all your drives - loss of BIOS settings, maybe, and that's what the motherboard battery is there for.

From what you've explained, it sounds like the guy on the phone could've just as easily and arbitrarily (and mistakenly) said he was going to send someone out to replace your DVD drive.

The good thing is that they're sending a tech out to your home - hopefully, he'll be able to figure out when he gets there that the hard drive isn't the problem and get you back in business.

Incidentally, this reminds me of a story my wife told me a few days ago. Her step-mother's brother (who is a country boy and knows next to nothing about computers) recently purchased a Dell that was dead on arrival. The tech on the phone correctly diagnosed the problem as a bad motherboard. They shipped him a new one and, over the phone, walked him through changing it out. The most major and complicated component replacement you can make, completed by someone who knows as much about computers as I know about brain surgery. WOW!

Moral of the story - just because you got a dope on the phone doesn't mean they're all dopes. Just most of them. :D

This doesn't sound like a hard drive problem to me since NONE of your IDE devices (hard drive, CD/DVD drives) are detected.

If the system is under warranty and you have free on-site support, I would let someone come check it out. The only problem is that you describe the problem as intermittent. Will the technician be able to find the problem when he arrives, or does it occur so infrequently that he won't be likely to see it happen?

When you receive the error message, try pressing the reset button on the front of the case and see if that will allow a normal boot.

The warning message you are getting refers to the BIOS backup battery. This is a small coinsized cell somewhere on the motherboard. The purpose of the battery is to keep the information in the BIOS chip, so that the configuration data is not lost.

The life of the battery is usually two or three years, and to get a warning on a new machine is a bot odd to say the least! It could be a faulty battery, so if it will not invalidate your warranty, I would suggest opening the case, and checking that ithe battery is firmly inserted in its holder. A new battery is cheap, and easily inserted, so you may want to try changing it.

Only open the case, and change the battery if you are certain about the warranty terms, otherwise let the makers technician do it.

David

Dell can be difficult about their warranty service and I would focus on insisting that they fix or replace. If you start doing things without a tech on the phone telling you what to do, you could be out of luck if you have problems later. When under warranty, use the warranty....

Hang out here enough and next time you can build your own...:)

Agree with everyone regarding using the warranty coverage to get the problem fixed.
My niece recently bought a Dell system, and had sound problems.
She called Dell, and the tech support rep was able to solve things over the phone. So as pentachris stated, there are competent techs out there.

Your problem can also be caused by a defective BIOS chip. If this is the case, then the entire MB will probably have to be replaced.