Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire computer gurus--help please

Have a borrowed Dell Dimension 4100 desktop computer running my Minolta Dimage 35mm film scanner. When I turn on the computer I get the following message:
"Invalid boot diskette. Insert Boot diskette in A."

I don't have any diskette to install. This system has run without issue in the past, but suddenly shows this problem. No Windows 10 driver is available for this XP-based scanner. And, on a previous Windows 10 laptop, I tried the Windows XP downgrade to drive the scanner without success.

Any suggestions? Thanks fellas.

4100 with floppy disks? You still using buggy whips as well?

Try to boot up in safe mode.

Try disk recovery/repair.

ok one possibility is that the CMOS battery died and reset the bios to defaults. Longshot, but on a Dell 4100 I think you hit the DEL key when it starting up to get into the bios. If you can. you might be able to tell it to boot from C:- and as long as the OS is ok you should be set. Just don't unplug it from power. If that is the case you can open up the computer and find a small battery on the motherboard and replace it - of course when doing that DO have it unplugged.

+1. The BIOS doesn't know which disk to boot from. You need to reset it. If C: or D: doesn't work, your hard drive is probably fried.

Question do you have a cd/dvd reader installed - if so make sure you did not leave a cd/dvd in it - if you did remove it and try rebooting again

CMOS battery puking is a probability but only if it hasn’t been powered up recently. Del key is what gets you into the bios. Remember to never ever power down until you have saved and exited the BIOS if you do that machine will never run again.
2nd option is that the Boot Sector got corrupted which is why it’s asking for a boot disc. If you have access to another machine you can download a boot disk, But if you don’t have the installation disk you may be screwed as a lot of those machines had the key to the OS in the boot sector. User manual link below which has Bios and cmos battery instructions.

https://downloads.dell.com/manuals/...imension-4100_service%20manual_en-us.pdf

OPERATING SYSTEM NOT FOUND—CallDellfortechnicalassistance(see page 82).
INSERT BOOTABLE MEDIA—The operating system is trying to boot to a nonbootable floppy disk or CD. Insert a bootable floppy disk or CD.
NON-SYSTEM DISK ERROR— There is a floppy disk in the floppy drive. Remove the floppy disk and restart the computer.

If you hit the F9 key several times during boot it should list the boot options and let you scroll up or down to select your hard drive. Hit enter once it is selected.

Just checked it and there was no CD/DVD in the drives.

have you tried to boot in safe mode
https://www.google.com/search?q=boo...&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8

what was the last thing you did before thd issue started

Sounds to me like the hard drive crapped out on you.

The hard drive crapped out.

Assuming that your BIOS settings aren't all wacky, it sounds like you lost your boot sector on the hard drive.

Obviously he’s not comfortable playing in the BIOS or troubleshooting.
Problem 1. 4100 series only came with 98, ME and 2000. It had enough guts to run XP so probably upgraded.
Problem 2. If the BIOS, hard drive, floppy or motherboard had a problem it should give a beep code. Plus you can hear those old drives winding up. But he probably isn’t listening.
Solution 1. Replace the CMOS battery and go in reset the BIOS and set the boot sequence to C first, CD/DVD as second boot device and A drive as the third boot device to look for then see if it will boot, it should run the entire sequence if boot record is not found on C. XP if that’s what he’s running had a nasty habit of contaminating the boot sector if the time and date got to far out of whack due to weak CMOS battery.
Solution 2. Buy a full Windows XP version w/license off of flea bay for 30 bucks, have some one set up a dual boot on a new desk/Laptop.
Solution 3. Buy a usb backup drive that can be made bootable so if you download sh*t that fugg with things or if something goes bad you can repair easily.

This computer has sat unused for a couple years IIRC. I wouldn't mind replacing the hard drive or battery, if that's what it takes to get it going. I could Google how to start in safe mode (the link showed Windows 10), but not sure what to try after that.
Also would not mind buying that Windows XP OS to setup dual boot, if that is the way to go.

Here's how those things shipped, back in 2001!!

Intel Pentium™ III 733 mhz Processor

Intel 815e Chipset in ATX Formfactor (BIOS verison - A11 (Latest))

128 Megabytes (MB) of Kingston PC133 SDRAM

Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 ST380011A - hard drive - 10 GB - 7200rpm - 2MB Cache - ATA-100 *

Standard Dell 200 Watt PSU

Microsoft Windows™ XP

Yep

It’s probably the little cr 2032 3volt battery

Tried this per your advice, but all that happened was the same "invalid boot diskette" message appeared on the screen dozens of times.

Edit to add that this link says to use F8, which I will try.

https://www.lifewire.com/how-to-start-windows-xp-in-safe-mode-2624542

Edit again to add that F8 produces precisely the same result.

Me? I'd send it ta Northeln Dave.

He did wonders with that gas pump.

Thing still won't work, but it'll look good sittin there.

Disconnect the scanner and try again.