Oh and I cant get it into BIOS unless it has the 98 HDD in it. I dont even get a Dell Screen with the XP.

This, and your other comments about reinstall attempts, makes me think it is a problem with the hard drive or, possibly, the motherboard. The reason I say this is that you should be able to access the BIOS even if you don't have a hard drive connected. Since the one hard drive works, I'm inclined to think it is the drive and not the motherboard that is the problem. This means the fix is going to be to get another hard drive to use for installing Windows XP on the system again.

Another option I just thought of, which is a bit of a long shot but easy/inexpensive to test, is to try an 80 pin IDE ribbon cable for the hard drive instead of the 40 pin cable you are most likely using. If you are going to get a new hard drive it will most likely come with an 80 pin cable anyway since that is the standard for EIDE (extended IDE) drives, which is about all you can get now other than SATA (which your computer does not support).

The difference between the two types of IDE cable is only in the number of wires in the ribbon: an normal IDE had 40 wires and 40 pins on the connector, while and EIDE cable has 80 wires and 40 pins on the connector. The extra wires for EIDE cables are to reduce interference and thus increase the speed the data can be transfered to and from the hard drive.

As for the system not liking to be moved, I have seen that happen before. Normally the fix for that is just going through the computer and making sure all of the connections are seated properly, and all the screws are snugged down and not loose. Basically, every time you pick up the computer or move it, some parts get just a tiny bit loose, until eventually something starts (or stops) happening. While this is more likely to happen in a notebook, since it gets carried around all the time, it can happen with a desktop as well.

Larry
Dell Customer Advocate

No I am not going to get a new HDD, as it technically work, just not in the PC its supposed to if in fact it is the HDD, we will see how long my hubby can use it in the IBM, and I will use the dell as my lab machine. If in fact it is my mobo why does 98 load fine.
I also did make sure everything was tight etc etc. But this is not the first tiem thsi PC has done crazy stuff, one day it crashed while I was using it, I restarted and it would not start, so i called the place I got it from as it was still under warrenty through them and we arranged to bring it in to reformat, so the day before I decided to plug it in to get my hubbies files off it, and I was going to go into safe mode, and it started up fine, and worked fine up until know. And this happened about 6 months after we replaced the CDROM etc. I think maybe the Dell has just lost its life, as it really makes no sence to me why one HDD would work and the wont, everything is telling me its not the HDD nor the mobo. I even switch the HDD and CDROM ports and it worked with the 98 but not with the XP. Amd I have the CDROM in the IBM so its not the CDROM. I agree all the sypmtoms point to a failing HDD, but is working fine. I dont know I am stumped.

Oh and Larry I did switch the cables, I had a few extra ones with my lab machine and still nothing, but then I thought if the 98 works how could it be the cable.

Ok ribs i want to revisit an earlier thread, though I'm not too sure it will be effective,

Early on I asked about master/slave settings, then I kind of left that line of tought for some reason. To adjust master/slave settings you would need to move or remove a small jumper that is situated in an area of the physical drive somewhere between where the IDE cable plugs in and where the power connector plugs in. Normally on the top of the drive there is a little diagram that shows where to place the jumper to set the drive to Master, Slave or Cable select. Some drives really don't like being set to slave (I've run into this problem with a lot of older Fujitsu drives. Most times this can be rectified by simply removing the jumper altogether.

Essentially what I would like you to try if you're feeling so inclined to do is...

Check the settings on the CDROM (oh yes also sometimes there are indicators such as MAS, SLA, and CS, right above where the jumper sits.) and set the hard drive to the opposite setting. Alternatively you can take the trial and error approach since there are only a few possibilities. First try master and boot. Then try slave, then try no jumper and as a last resort, try cable select. We would also like to try these settings with your XP CD in the drive and the CMOS set to 1st boot from CD and 2nd boot from HDD0 (zero).

Ok I will try they are both CS, I am not feelign well today so I will try in a few days, being sick and trying to work on a pc may make me hurt it, lol. Thanks Ron

No prob, I'll keep an eye out for ya, I usually have my CDROM set to master...well, actually I have both my ooptical drives on one IDE cable and both my hard drives on the other, if that's an option you could simply set both to master and put them on seperate IDE controllers.

Take care, chicken soup for viruses and fresh garlic cloves for infections (that hurts but it's worth it. Honey for sore throats.