Need help to reinstall Windows XP to Dell Precision 390

[abashar]

Recently I bought an off lease Dell Precision 390 PC. It comes with the Windows xp and it has password protected (corporate network). So, I tried to reinstall Windows XP in this PC, but during the installation it says hard drive not found. This pc comes with 73 GB SAS hard drive. Can any one tell me how I can reinstall the windows xp. Any help will be appreciating. Thanks so much.

[Cuc Tu]

Is it the OS or the BIOS that is password protected? I.E. does Windows start to boot?

I use a BIOS password protection at work because I did not want someone booting my PC with Linux and getting to files on the HD, plust I put a PW on teh HD.

There are also other encryptions SWs that run under any OS to encrypt the HD content and may not be formatable using the regular XP install disk.

Can you get into BIOS and see the HD? If so, try some other boot disk to format the drive.

[pcs365.10]

Dell Precision workstation, press F2 to go into BIOS, and then go to “SATA Management” to select AHCI or SATA mode. If you don’t find any option in BIOS to change AHCI support for SATA ports, most probably the drives already runs in IDE (ATA) emulation mode and therefore doesn’t require the AHCI driver. It’s because AHCI support is depending on the chipset (commonly by Intel) and the HDD.

[pcs365.10]

Please replay at your convenience

Regards
Chris

[abashar]

First of all I don’t know too much about the pc hardware. Anyway after booting it says Dell SAS 5 Host Bus Adapter. After press F2, I didn’t find the “SATA Management” option to select AHCI or SATA mode. I did find in the boot sequence “Onboard SATA Hard Drive (Not present)” and “Onboard PATA Hard Drive (Not present)”. I opened the tower and checked there is 73 GB SAS HDD inside and also connected. Thanks all to replay my post, I really appreciate that.

[YODA74]

Recently I bought an off lease Dell Precision 390 PC. It comes with the Windows xp and it has password protected (corporate network).

I think the key words here are it has password protected (corporate network). This leads me to believe they have a Corporate Network Security software installed hiding the drives which is password protected (which we cannot help with) Is there any way you can contact the place where you bought it and see if they can correct the problem? When you buy it off lease they are supposed to clear all files and take it back to factory specs as far as I know?The only other option I can see is to boot&nuke the drive

[Paul Komski]

If when you start up the PC there is a blue band at the top of the screen with Dell etc written on it in white text then press CTRL + F11 while the blue bar is still showing (you may need to reboot a couple of times to hit it at the right moment). That should give you an option to restore to factory condition. No such bar and there will be no such option.

[abashar]

Thanks so much everyone for yours all the help. I am going to try now.

[hackerballs]

You always buy a new HDD....they are reasonable cheap these days....or just borrow one for a test to see if that would relive the issue.........probally time for a new HDD anyways as they do wear out.........

[Paul Komski]

I agree. Try a new HDD or try the current drive in another PC to see if it is detected there. Usually when a drive is not detected by the BIOS it is caput.

Incidentally there is a password jumper (http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/ws390/en/ug_en/html/geninfo.htm) on that motherboard - though if you can get into the BIOS as you have done it is unlikely to be involved in your problem.

Nice to replace with another SAS HDD but an ordinary SATA should more than suffice.