ok so currently i have a dell dimension 4600.
specs:
pentium 4, 2.6 ghz
1 gb ram

anyways, it has 2 hard drives.. the primary hard drive is 60 gb, i later installed a sata hard drive thats 160 gb.. everything was working fine, the only thing was that to boot to win xp, i had to always press f12 and go to the boot menu and choose the primary hard drive (60 gb one) because windows is installed on that hard drive.. and i believe that in the dell it automatically boots with the sata hard drive.

what happened is about 2 weeks ago i installed a new dvd writer.. at first it would work just fine, but then all of sudden (like 2 days ago) it stopped booting.. the computer will go to the dell splash screen, but when i press f2 or f12 it will not go to the setup menu or the boot menu, it goes to a black screen and does nothing.. the only way i can access the setup bios, is by removing the battery, putting it back in, and then turning the pc back on.. i've tried removing the new dvd writer, but it freezes on the dell splash screen.. i've also tried turning off the sata hard drive (160 gb one) in the bios, but it still does not boot to win xp.. does anyone have any ideas ?? thanks for the help.

Hello and welcome to PCHelpForum.

Please except my appoligies for the delay in you receiving help.

I have marked your thread as "Open" for someone to input on your question/problem.

Jelly Bean.

Try unplugging the new CD drive and see if it boots. Im sure well get this worked out for ya.