Yes I removed the cmos Battery and held the button down for 10 seconds. It then booted into the bios. I then set the time and date and scrolled down to factory defaults. I stopped there because I didn't want to lose anything on the hard drive.
Can i remove the hard drive and continue?
Sir George, I removed the hard drive and proceeded to your instructions. Set the time and date and factory defaults. I shut it down and re connected the hd. Now it's says no bootable devices. I got ahead of my self! It is not seeing the hd.
larry d:
Slow down a bit, you are rushing in & trying all sorts of things, rather than trying one thing at a time.
As Sir George mentioned disconnecting the hard drive was pointless. Now you mention that the hard drive is not shown in the BIOS, so recheck all the connections to the hard drive.
If you are using a SSD then it has probably been set up as AHCI. When you replaced the CMOS battery, the BIOS then resets to the default settings. The default setting is usually IDE, so if the SSD has been set to AHCI it will not boot with the IDE setting.
Once your BIOS recognises the hard drive, reset it to AHCI & save the setting, do not then go to "reset factory defaults" as this will cancel your AHCI setting.
Your absolutely right, I need to slow down. Sorry. I have to go to work now, hope you guys can help tomorrow.
Thanks much!
I am able to see the ssd in the bios now, but i cant figure out how to change it from ide to ahci. I do not see a settings option.? Thanks for any reply-----------
Do you have a motherboard manual, if so read through it see how to set it up for AHCI. I am not familiar with Dell motherboards, so someone else may be able to help if you don't have a manual.
You can get the XPS 420 manual here:
Product Support | Dell US
I couldn't find a Setup option for AHCI in the manual.
Here is a tutorial by gregrocker you can work through.
Troubleshooting Windows 7 Failure to Boot
If you have questions or issues you can ask back here and someone should be able to help.
Thank you very much! I did not mention that I have the cd that came with the ssd. Would that be of any help? Thanks again.
Quote