Don

Apparently the communication to/from the hard drive is not functioning 
well. Assuming you reseated the IDE cable at the motherboard and at the 
drive, there are a few other possible causes. The cable has gone bad, 
the on board IDE has gone bad, or the hard drive has gone bad. Only 
wanting to make one trip to a local retailer, I would buy a new cable 
and an IDE controller PCI card (both are relatively cheap). If these do 
not help, you likely have a problem with the hard drive.

I just noticed that you were able to run a CD on the computer. If the 
hard drive and CD drive are on the same IDE cable, the possible causes 
are limited to the cable connection at the hard drive or the hard drive 
itself (hardware or software problem).

I hope this helps.

Tom

Donald DeWitt wrote:
> Hello Hugh,
>
> I think maybe we can rule out a heat problem. Both fans are running good and
> the computer is painstakingly cleaned out with a power air compressor two
> times a year.
>
> When I use the F12 key to go to the diagnostics page, I get a report saying
> “Utility Partition not Available” and the computer just keeps going back to
> the blue warning screen. I never gave it though to count the exact number of
> beeps when the computer first shut down, (A true amateur). I think there
> were at least four or five. The green and yellow lights on the back of the
> computer are showing the flowing: A=G, B=G, C=G and D=Y. The web site
> recommendation for that code sequence is to “Ensure that the cables are
> properly connected from the hard drive, CD drive, and DVD drive to the
> system board.” I did that by removing all the connections and reinstalling
> them. I located the original Dell Utilities CD and ran all the diagnostics
> and that is telling me, “IDE device is blank or no media present in the
> optical drive.”
>
> Question: Just what is the IDE in my computer, is it replaceable and how
> hard would it be for me to replace?
>
> Don
>
>
>
> On Sat, Jun 6, 2009 at 9:53 AM, Antonio Figueroa <
> [log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>   
>> Don Dewitt:
>>
>> Do the lights do any pattern?,Does it beep 5 times steady or does do 1 beep
>> then 3 beep then 1beep,here is what I found online,hope it helps.
>>
>> http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/dim8400/SM/adtshoot.htm#wp1052933
>>
>> Best Regard,
>>                         Antonio Figueroa
>> --- On Fri, 6/5/09, Donald DeWitt <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>
>> From: Donald DeWitt <[log in to unmask]>
>> Subject: [PCBUILD] Computer Problem
>> To: [log in to unmask]
>> Date: Friday, June 5, 2009, 2:22 PM
>>
>> Booted up computer today and it ran normal for about ½ hr. and then
>> suddenly
>> shut down. First the screen went black, then there were 4 or 5 beeps coming
>> from the tower, and finally a sound like the hard drive was spinning out
>> control that lasted only a short time. Rebooting resulted in a blue screen
>> stating Windows was shutting the system down. Using the F12 key I entered
>> into a page that let me do a Hard Drive Diagnostic test. The results
>> revealed – “Pass”
>>
>>
>>
>> This computer is a 5 year old Dell 8400 running XP. I have not added any
>> new
>> software or hardware recently and I do a daily run with AVG and Super anti
>> spyware.
>>
>>
>>
>> Do you have any suggestions what the problem might be?
>>
>>
>>
>> Thank You,
>>
>>
>>
>> Don Dewitt
>>
>>              
>>     
>
>          
>   

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