I do quite a bit of PC Troubleshooting and other Tech help for several neighbors given I do this as a side business. One of my neighbors called me with a problem and I spent hours looking into it. I think I have it narrowed down after tons of searching Google and several of my frequented tech forums (such as this one). Can you let me know your thoughts on the following: [b][u]System specs[/u][/b] Dell PIII 1000 GHz, 256 MB RAM, 60 GB HD, etc. Windows 2000 Cable Internet Access Windows Critical updates 'current' ZoneAlarm FREE 'current' AVG AV FREE 'current' Spybot/Adware/SpywareBlaster 'current' [b][u]Problem Description[/u][/b] When powering on the computer ... either it would boot up as expected or, just after the Dell Splash Screen, the following message would appear as white text against a black screen [quote]INVALID BOOT DISKETTE INSERT BOOT DISKETTE IN A:[/quote] [b][u]Facts & Troubleshooting Ideas Performed[/u][/b] 1. There is no floopy disk in Drive A: 2. All IDE and Power connections internally are secure 3. Unseated and reseated SDRAM 4. Changed Boot Sequence to HDD, CDROM only (disabled Floppy in BIOS) 5. Switched IDE Cable with good spare 6. BIOS shows that no Primary Master or Slave is being recognized 7. I removed HDD and hooked it up to my computer as a slave ... and the drive is accessible as expected. [b][u]My Thoughts / Conclusions[/u][/b] I'm leaning toward it being a bad IDE Controller and/or mobo in general. The only other thing I can think of doing, but not sure if it is just spinning my wheels or not ... is to put the HDD on the Secondary IDE Controller and leaving the Primary IDE controller empty. From my search on this forum and two others that I use frequently, ther are a handful of folks who have experienced this same exact problem ... primarily (if not exclusively) on Dell Computers. And, the operating systems have ranged from Win98 to WinXP ... so it isn't OS Dependent. Some responses included bad mobos, bad hard drives, and boot sector viruses. What are your thoughts? Thanks for the assistance!

It could also be that the power supply is dying. Also, is there an option in the BIOS for LBA mode on primary IDE? And you should download a hard drive utility from the manufacturer's website to be sure that it is not the hd.

Hi, Have you tried using the recovery software? Tony AMD Athlonxp 3200+ OC Asus A7N8x-deluxe-E ATI AIW 9600pro 2x WD SATA raptors/raid0 Corsair XMS3200 16x Lite-on DVD 12x DVD-R 48x Lite-on CDRW Aspire Super Alien Case

I tried both of the things you mentioned above ... I even hooded up a spare good HDD on both the secondary and primary IDE controllers with the invalid disk diskette error. So, I've come to the conclusion that the mobo has bitten the dust completly. I spent a good 8 hours on it today.

Hi Try TuffTest-Lite. If the drive can not been seen at the bios level, use a hard drive diagnostic. (Test system memory first - memtest86). This will confirm faulty motherboard ide channel. Plug in another supply. One of the voltages might not have enough wattage. Be careful, at one time Dell had "special" power supplies.(needed an adapter to run a standard.) Reportedly Dell is using the industry standard again.