Hi,

I had a CMOS battery in an old Dell desktop die recently. The battery was replaced, and now the floppy drive and CD-ROM drive no longer work. I went into and system set up and noticed that those drives weren't listed, so I went ahead and tried entering the correct setting for the floppy drive since the correct setting was self-evident. That did not work. When I rebooted the computer, there was an error message on the screen for a few seconds:

The Dell is an OptiPlex GXa 266M, and it has a Phoenix ROM BIOS PLUS ver. 1.10 A09. Anyone have any suggestions on how to fix this?

Phil

Maybe you pulled the flat cables without noticing. It happens. Also try loading BIOS defaults.

before you replacing the battery you should reset the Jumper. you can do it now by remove the battery leave it about 30-60seconds, remove the BIOS jumper, install the batter now. leave it about the same time then plugin the jumper to previous position. BIOS should RESET now.

Okay, I'll check the cables as soon as I get a chance. As for the BIOS defaults, I am a little reluctant to do so after reading this on the BIOS manufacturer's web site:

Since that seems to imply that the computer could become inoperable after restoring the default values, I figured that I'd try that as a last resort.

Phil

Dells are funny little animals... Sometimes they will put them self into "Factory Mode" (actually what it is called, sometimes it actually states that on the screen along with your drive errors.) This happens most often with replacement motherboards, but can be the result of a dead CMOS battery.

If the board IS actually in "Factory Mode" you can take it out by entering BIOS and Hold down 'ALT'... while still holding, Press 'E' then 'F' then 'B'... You should hear a beep and the system should reset. You should now be able to configure your CD and floppy drive without issue.

This sounds similar to advice I got from a friend for a different computer, but which I haven't yet had a chance to try. Where would I find this jumper that you referred to? I could only find one jumper on the motherboard, which has "266 MHz" written next to it. There are six pairs of pins in that area, and only that pair has a jumper on it.

Phil

the jumpers are usually in close proximity to the CMOS battery... and in most cases 3 pins (2 jumpered and 1 free). With the power off, switch the jumper to the other 2 pins, wait 30sec, put the jumper back and settings should be back to defaults.

Hi twig123,

Unfortunately, there is no jumper on the motherboard that is similar to your description. There is the jumper I mentioned previously, and a pair of pins with no jumper that are close to the middle of the motherboard. There is no jumper near the CMOS battery, nor anywhere else for that matter (other than those I've already mentioned).

Phil

Apparently your setup is a little different then a standard board, and does not have a Reset jumper but only a BIOS Password configuration.

Here is info on your board:
http://stason.org/TULARC/pc/motherboards/D...TIPLEX-GXA.html
***
USER CONFIGURABLE SETTINGS:
Password enabled > Jumper Labeled 'J6' > Closed
Password disabled > Jumper Labeled 'J6 > Open

Hi twig123,

Thanks for the link. Looks like a useful site.

Phil