I have recentlly obtained a Dell Optiplex GXa CPU. PROCESSOR speed is 266 MHz Pentium II with 96 mb SDRAM, 2 mb SGRAM and 512 kb integrated level 2 cache. BIOS version is A09. When I try to boot it up a receive a message on the first DOS screen stating "No boot drive available, strike F1 to RETRY boot, F2 for setup utility". I went to F2 "Setup Screen", set primary drives to "Auto" and secondary drives to "NONE". From opening up the CPU case I see what to me look like 2 hard drives. There are also 2 CD ROM drives. On the setup screen toward the top of the screen it asks to designate which drive the computer should attempt to boot up from first and I indicated the CD ROM drive (as I am wanting to put Windows XP home version on it). I have tried every possible combination of settings to each of the drives, etc. on the setup screen only for the result, each time, to be, "No boot drive available....". I have no boot up disk nor know specifically what I need do do to correct this. I bought this computer used and don't know the previous user in order to obtain any more history on it. The computer will not even allow me to type any characters at all on the first, main DOS screen. Please help, timely responses are GREATLY appreciated.Make sure the drives are jumpered to CS, cable SELECT (all of them!) and then from the F2 screen set them all to auto, then reboot. Go back to F2 and look there. Do they all show up?

From the boot option screen set it to CDROM, floppy and hard drive. (I believe the GXa did have all of those options, although earlier ones did not.)

As we don't know if the drives are formatted, you should boot from a floppy (free download at www.bootdisk.com) I would suggest a Win98 disk. From there you will have to partition and format the hard drives. Post back if you have any questions on this.

Before deciding on XP Home be warned that this is not a system that will run it effectiively. Windows 98 would be a better fit.

Why don't you post he size of the hard drives, if shown, or the brand and model numbers if not. Also if you post the service tag (on the side of the machine) we can see what was originally on it when shipped.

Let's get it operational first though.