Dell Dimension 2400 not reading and/or writing to cd/floppy drives. Help

The Dimension 2400 has two PATA/EIDE controllers, each of which will boot only from the Master drive.  As Dell designed this machine to use Cable Select for its drives, the Master drive is the one on the end connector of the IDE ribbon.  To get the computer to boot from the slave drive (the one connected to the middle connector of the IDE ribbon) you must go to System Setup (F2 during the Dell logo after starting the computer) and turn the Master drive to Off.

The diskette drive is operating fine.  If you are certain that the disk you are using is bootable, go back to System Setup and check to make sure the diskette drive has been set to On.  Alternate settings allow you to turn the diskette drive to Off, and to enable the drive for Read/Write without the ability to boot the computer.  If that last setting has been selected it is understandable that the computer will not recognize a bootable diskette.

With regard to the drive you describe as D: it will read only CDs, not DVDs.  If a CD is not recognized, try inserting a data CD and running the diagnostic tests.  If the computer is still using the hard drive shipped with it by Dell, start the computer and press F12 during the Dell logo.  From the one time boot menu that appears in the upper right of the screen select Diagnostics.  If the drive doesn't have the diagnostics you can find them by booting the Dell Resource disk having the drivers and utilities for the computer.  If the disk refuses to boot in Drive D, try using the trick described earlier to see if the disk will boot from the DVD/CD drive (E:).

EDIT:  Now that I look at it if you turn the CD drive off to boot from the DVD drive you won't be able to test the CD drive.  Instead of using the trick it will be necessary to switch the IDE connectors between the two drives in order to place the DVD/CD drive in the Master position and the CD drive in the slave.  That should allow you to boot from the Resource CD and test the CD drive.

Thanks Jack,

After posting last night I uninstalled the drivers for the cd/rw, cd/rom and floppy disk then rebooted to allow the computer to reinstall each.  I had already downloaded CDBurnerXP as her Sonic software had long expired.

1)  The cd/rw drive is now working perfectly.  I can read and write to it.  I cannot boot from it though (see last question).

2)  The floppy drive is now working perfectly also.  I can read, write and boot from it.

3)  The computer can still do nothing with the cd/rom drive.  It shows in the system but cannot read anything which is put into it and I only get errors when trying to do so (not accessible or no disk in drive, etc).  I will go through your suggestions.

LASTLY, THE COMPUTER ONLY LISTS THE "FLOPPY", THE "HARD DRIVE" AND THE "CD/ROM" DRIVE AS OPTIONS FROM BOOTING FROM.  IS IT POSSIBLE TO MAKE THE "CD/RW" DRIVE A BOOTABLE SOURCE?

Ralph

As I stated in my earlier post, the Dell BIOS will only look for a boot disk in the master drive position on the IDE cable.  It is usually possible to force the computer to boot from a secondary drive by changing the BIOS setting in System Setup to turn off the port for the master (Should be labeled Secondary Drive 0 or something similar).  Doing it that way won't allow you to test the CD drive since you have turned off the port in order to boot from the slave drive, but it will allow you to boot from a CD or DVD.

To test the CD drive it will be necessary to physically switch the data connectors on the drives to make the DVD/CD drive the master drive.  At that point you should be able to boot the Dell Resource CD and run a diagnostic on the CD drive.

Jack,

After I made my last post, I re-read your original post and subsequently went in and dissabled the "Secondary Master Drive" which is the cd/rom drive that's not functioning.  I was then able to boot successfully from the "Secondary Slave Drive" which is the cd/rw drive.  So the floppy and cd/rw drives are both functioning perfectly.  The cd/rom drive is apparently broken but will test it as you describe. 

 BTW,  these are just cd drives, no dvd capability.  What considerations should I have if she would like to replace the cd/rom drive with such as a DVD/CD combo?  It will be a compatable Dell Dimension 2400 but do I need software or will the system recognize the new drive? 

God Bless, Ralph

The Dimension 2400 will accept a DVD/CD combo drive just fine.  I ran one of these myself until a year ago, and the first thing I did when I acquired it five years ago was add one of these combo drives so I could use DVDs with it.  I purchased a Sony from one of the local business supply stores.  The only thing to watch for is that the PATA style drive is becoming rare at the local stores; you might have to purchase it from an on-line vendor.  SATA is taking over everything, I'm afraid.

There was nothing special I had to do in order for it to install other than plugging it into the slave connector.  The software that was bundled with it was necessary to play and write to DVDs as this capability is not included in Windows XP, but the CD function worked just as it did with the original CD R/W drive purchased with the machine.