Wide World of Women

Last Sat. night (the week before paddies day) my computer died on me. I called Dell, the tech said it the motherboard went up. The tech came out this past Thursday to replace the new parts. So I thought I would format my computer and start from fresh.

When I put the DVD disc in to format, the computer could not boot from the DVD drive. My CD drive is dead as of now. I can burn and play vids on the DVD drive. After awhile, as I asked the tech on the phone something, he told me that Dell did not put a CD drive in, that I only had a DVD drive. I got the invoice that came with the Dell and told him the item code. He looked it up and said that I did have it. But when he looked it up and it only showed the DVD drive, he could only send out that drive and not the CD drive. He then told me, that after they put in the new DVD drive, then they will send out the CD drive As of now, my computer does not show a CD drive and I can't use it to play or burn anything, (it's dead)

He said that since it did not show on his computer that I did not have a CD drive, he could not send a new one out or help to try to fix it, even after I gave hime the item no. that was on my invioce.

My ? is, does anyone know how to run a test on Dell computers to see if the CD drive went up. He said that if the CD drive does not work, they will have to replace that later. Dell from the start, had me down with the wrong computer that they sent me. They had that I only had XP home, when in fact, I have XP pro. with the media center 2005.

These are the same people that told me that you can change a 80 GB to a 250 GB which I have 2 (well 1 Dell tech told me that). Even another tech laught about that.

If anybody could tell me how to tell if CD drive is dead and not the DVD drive, I would like to thank you.

The only thing that came out good about the motherboard going bad was, I had a chace to go to W.V. and do some camping for a few days

Take Care all, slowpoke

What was not clear to me in your post if you have a DVD drive and a CD drive. If so, then CDs should still be able to be played in your DVD drive with the right program.

In order to format, my computer has to be able to reboot from the CD drive. I don't know why, cuz the disc is a DVD. When the tech looked for the CD drive, he could not find it and after he looked it up, he told me I don't have one on thier records.

So as far as now, I can't format. I guess the only thing I can hope for is that I get a good tech when he gets here and he can tell Dell the trouble

If the bootup disc is a DVD, then boot from the DVD drive. The majority of DVD drives can read both DVDs and CDs.

This is why I hate Dell. They force people to use their tech support yet it sucks balls.

Anytime you change mother boards you're going to have trouble. There's a chance that they didn't put in a Dell motherboard and it's not recognizing your DVD reader. You might open up the computer and make sure that where your CD or DVD player is that the cords coming out of it are all plugged in. It's a very common mistake.

Exactly.

It could be something as simple as them not connecting the CD player (or power supply to the CD player). I have a Dell that I hardly ever use anymore and the case slides right off... so my advice would be top open it up and take a quick look to see if anything isn't connected.

Good luck!

Changing motherboards is a pain. I've fried one before, and my little brother went through 3 on his old pc. The only problems I had was the connections, but that's already been mentioned here.

So you have two drives, a DVD and a CD.

I'm going to assume the CD and DVD have power because you were able to put the disc in. You need to make sure the computer sees the drives (the BIOS sees it, in technical vernacular). When the computer boots (before the beep), you should see something on the screen regarding "Setup" or BIOS" I think on Dells it's F2, on most others it's Delete. That will take you to the BIOS setup screens.

Once in the BIOS, look for something that says Configuration or Devices or Drives. You should see your Hard Drive and your other drives listed in the list of devices. If not, you have a diconnected cable or the jumpers on your drives aren't set properly. If you have a SATA drive, you will not have jumpers. If you have a wide, flat cable to the drive, you do not have SATA.

If you've gotten that far and everything is good, check in the BIOS for "Boot Order" and make sure your CD and/or DVD is listed and is listed before your hard drive. That is probably the one that is causing the issue, but you kind of need to go through the other steps to get there, just in case.

I have a Dell in the house, but it's not in a position to be rebooted, so I can't be overly-precise with what you'll see on the screens. Sorry. Hopefully you get what I'm saying.

You are right! I forgot that I had to change the order when I had to reboot from a disc after a crash. This may be your solution slowpoke.

Right after my last post here, I went to put a DVD in and it kill something in the DVD drive. All I got was a black screen. It is F2 to open the bios or you can use F12 to fix the bood order. Dell has been here enough, that if they keep it up, I'll be able to start up my own fix it shop

It took the tech about 3 minutes to put in the motherboard once he had the tower opened up and looked around and less then that to hook up everything else. I didn't know how to do that, but after seeing how it's done, I'm sure I could do it now. (but not as fast as he did )

In the end, all the techs (phone and who came here) said that the DVD drive may have started to go up before the motherboard went up and after they put in the motherboard, it damaged a part in the DVD drive that would not allow me to reboot from the DVD. They said that sometimes, a DVD drive can go bad, yet can still work for doing somethings while can't do other stuff.

As of now, everything is working great. But this will be my last Dell, yet again, the way things go up and they keep replacing parts, I may not need a new computer for a long while

The only thing that gets me is, to format my computer, I have to boot from the CD drive, yet I have to use the DVD drive do to the disc I need to format from is a DVD which will not work in the CD drive

Thanks for all the replies on this thread

With my previous computer, I had a DVD drive installed by Dell not record properly (However it still worked as a player and reader). The drive was 3 1/2 years old so I decided to get a Memorex External DVD drive and that I use primarily even with my newest Dell. The other DVD drives I have are purely backup.

First of all I m a full time digital photographer. I take about 5 to 6000 photos a month on average. I use my laptop 3 to 4 hours a day for work and maybe an hour to 90 minutes for fun/internet.

I have been using a Dell laptop for 34 months. But have been having so many issues with it the last few months from a torjan virus that was removed by a local tech and the screen hings slowly going and the hard drive no longer defrags right that I decided to get a new machine. Luckily last month I made a full backup of all programs and data files so when it crashes I can set-up a new drive in about 4 hours from 2 DVDs.

I started by e-mailing Dell for some help in specing out a new machine. I really liked Dell and my Dell before the virus hit. Basically I need Windows XP Pro (for work) and couldn't find any of their machines running anything but Winows Vista on their web site. The reply from Tech support via e-mail said and I quote "Why the HELL would you be stupid enough to want to do that. Tell me whats so wrong with Vista." So I called the 1-800# I tried to explain that for my job and employer I have to run winsdows XP Pro and they kept telling me I was stupid for wanted to do that. They did have 2 laptop models I could get with Windows XP Or but that would cost me an extra $150 above windows Vista for Xp and about $200 for XP Pro.

To make a long story short they really pissed me off so I decided to get a durabook laptop instead and believe it or not it costed a little less than what a similar Dell running Windows Vista Prem would have cost me. Just under $2000 for a top of the line Durabook with 2GB ram, Duo Core Intel Processor, 100GB hard drive, DVD super drive (Dual Layer, DVD-Ram, _/+RW); 5 in 1 memory card reader; 14.1" screen, MS Office 2003, Adobe Photoshop Elements 4.0 and Norton 2007.

Dell needs to learn not to call its customers stupid. 5 times in 3 minutes was enough to piss me off. Why is it support to want to use Windows XP Pro. If that is what I want they should sell it to me.... shouldn't they unless MS is no longer producing it which I know is not true because I asked MS and they said they will continue to produce the operating system and system discs through 2009 and support it through 2011 with updates and tech support. After 2011 we'll all be on our own for any opersting system piror to Vista.

Dell maybe the #1 selling laptop maker in the US now but for how long????? They need to wise up and listen to their customers. We ARE NOT STUPID.

dave

Wow.

Although... I am not surprised at such an inappropriate response.

I deal with such improper business etiquette and behavior on an astoundingly regular basis. The "customer is always right" quote of the past has become an increasingly widespread philosophy of:

"The company is always right and if you complain to a manager or supervisor, we are going to side with our employee and not discipline them. So in essence, your complaints will have no effect and we will continue to treat you as we wish and with utter disrespect."

I hear "You can take your business elsewhere" far too often these days (and I am one of the nicest and cordial people you could ever meet).

That said...

1. I will now NEVER purchase a DELL.
2. I plan on purchasing a new PC soon... BUT... the minute that I do, I am setting it up as a dual boot machine - with Windows XP on the main partition. Vista will only be used to slowly learn it for when it becomes necessary to switch - nothing more.

While the majority of us utilize Windows as our OS, MS is notorious for their new OS's not running perfectly (i.e. devoid of bugs, issues, a slew of updates, etc.) for a year or two after the initial release.

So I will not be switching to Vista for at least another year (if that) at the earliest.

Obviously, MS wants to sell what's new, so Vista is the most current offering. However, businesses don't always have the desire to have and support multiple operating systems on their workstations, so Dell will sell business systems with other supported opeating systems. MS's policy is to support one legacy operating system, currently XP.

Although a moot point now, Dell does sell laptops with XP.

BTW, the email reply is shocking.