How is the CMOS battery? Systems can do weird when they are drained.

Come to think of it, I really didn't think about it - there isn't any connected, though I figure it relied on the main system battery (which surprisingly still holds a bit of charge) to keep CMOS.

EDIT: No dice getting a CMOS there... it's one of those funky 7.2v batteries.

How large HDD you try?

Ydee wrote on 2023-07-18, 11:31:

How large HDD you try?

Anything - 20, 40 and 60 as well. None get picked up. Heck, I even tried a 10GB drive.

Did you check the bios battery voltage and see if it's still within spec? Have you tried reflashing or updating the bios?

Weird, my works flawlessly with 80GB or 6,4GB - but I have higher models (c810 and 840). Have you latest BIOS in your (A16 seems)?

The BIOS battery is missing, and I'm not able to source a 7.2v one at the moment. I instead installed a standard CR2032 battery in its place (the original was 7.2v 20mAh for whatever reason...) that tested in spec (3v), harvested from a HP G62.

As for the BIOS, it has had the latest BIOS already installed before I got it. Boots with "BIOS Revision A16" (or something close to that, don't exactly remember how Dell writes it but I know A16 shows up.)

It could just be weirdness from not having proper CMOS battery voltage. You can try 2 coin cells to get 6v that would be closer to the 7.2. I've have a ton of systems either completely play dead or just do the most random weird crap with a low or dead/mission bios battery.