Hey guys, i'm in desperate need of help.

I have a Dell dimension 4800 sp2. Basically i want to rebuild it with my New Xp disc.

The problem is, i can't get the disc to boot from cd. I have two cd drivers -
- Cd Driver
- Dvd/CD-RW driver

Now normally the problem is that, when place a cd in my CD driver, it doesn't read it or load anything up. I even go to explore and it says "please place disc". But the weird thing is, when i right click properties, it says "there's no errors with this driver", also in "device manager" it's there and it's all clean. But it just doesn't read discs.

Now, the DVD/CD-RW reads all discs, and it works perfectly. But I DON'T KNO HOW TO configure that to boot from disc. I go to bios settings, but it's not there, it's the worst bios menu ever, like 12 options. Anyways, it only says CD drive, Hard Disk, and something else {it's not dvd/cd-rw}.

So now i try F12, and there' are options, i've tried all of them, but it either goest to windows loading screen, or it says "press f2 to boot from disc", i press f2, and the same message comes up {meaning it can't read the disc}.

I really need help guys, i feel like my comps gonna blow up, it really needs rebuilding, i wanna delete any previous versions and want a clean install.

Maybe if i knew how to make the settings to boot up from teh DVD/CD-RW drive, or maybe if i knew how to fix teh CD drive cos thats just weird, then i could do it, but sadly i can't.

Please please, all advice and assistance is more than appreciated.

Thank you.

Hello Hex

Ok put the dvd/cdrw on the IDE cable that has your hdd attached (IDE0). Set the dvd jumpers as Slave.
Put the cdrom on the other IDE cable running to IDE1and set the jumper as Master.
Forget that the bios does not see it as a dvd/cdrw.
Set the boot sequence to cdrom, making sure the XP or whatever os you want to put on is in the dvd drive and then save and exit.

so basicaly, u want me to open up my processor. And replace the cd drive, with the dvd drive?

I can do that, but i don't understand the Jumper...?

your support is trully amazing, thank u.

Ok Hex
On the back of your cdrom and dvd drives along with your hard drive you will see 1 or more little pieces of plastic like in the shot below, these are called jumpers.
Let's forget about your cdrom for the moment ok and we'll install the dvd drive.
Firstly look at the ribbon cable that comes from the motherboard to your hard drive, between the m/board and the hdd you should see a spare connector, attach the dvd drive to that connector making sure the Jumper is set to slave.
Reboot and enter the bios by pressing either F2 or F12 or whatever key it says, for example "Press F2 to enter setup".
Now look at the second picture and do you the word Main at the very top of the screen on the left?
This will be the opening bios screen where you will see the hard drive and the dvdrom listed.
In the boot screen that is featured you will need to set the boot sequence to cdrom first, make sure the XP disk is in the drive then Save and Exit.
The system will start now looking for boot files on the XP disk and will ask you to press any key to boot from cd.
It will ask you to do so again later on, do NOT press anything just let XP install.
Enter the 25 digit/character keycode when asked and away you go.

Attached Images

	hdd_jumper_ma.jpg (17.2 KB, 4 views)
	md7005.jpg (22.3 KB, 6 views)

ok thank you Wolfeymole, i actually tried it today and well... i failed. The reason is, because i need more detail and more help.

Ok, i open it up, for some reason i can only open up "ONE" side of my dell computer, the other sides are all connected together and are impossible to budge...this makes it sooo compact and hard to see, and get my fingers in the processor.

Anyways, so i looked at my cd drive, and my dvd drive. This is what i saw -

Cd drive - i saw a grey ribbon connected, and i saw a white connector with lots of wires joined to it, connected to the cd drive. I also saw what you were talking about, the "jumpers", which seemed impossible to reach...

DVD drive - exact same thing as the cd drive.

Ok, my problem lies here, i couldn't find the wire you were talking about that's between the motherboard and the hard drive. What spare connector, how does it look like? If i can find that connector, i can CONNECT it to my dvd drive...

My other question is, can't i just swap the cd drive wires with the dvd drive wires, wouldn't that work.

Please please help me Wolfeymole, your a great guy, and have supported me so much, and i trully thank you for this.

ps. i posted the same topic on this site and go absolutly NOTHING...so my praises go to this site big time!

Ok for a start the white connector that you saw is called a Molex connector and if you trace it back it will go to your power supply.
The "Ribbon" cable that you saw is the IDE cable which transfers data between the hard drive and cd rom drives.
Give me a minute to find a pic of a 3 way IDE cable ok?

EDIT:
Ok here it is, now the blue connector goes to the mobo, the middle connector goes to you cdrom and the top connector goes to the hard drive ok.

Attached Images

IDE.jpg (1.9 KB, 2 views)

ok im starting to understand and will try it today.

The only thing i dn't understand is the "jumpers to slave" bit. IS that really important, can't i just do the ribbon bit and hope for it to work, or do i realy have to disassemble my pc and look further into it maker sure the jumper is set to slave.

Edite: ok i understand the jumpers bit. I looked inside, and i saw "A" ide cable going in the cd drive, that same cable was going into the dvd drive, and i think taht same cable is going into the hdd mobo...

I gonna try it out, but plz confirm.