Rebuilding the above from scratch, I've sorted most of the driver problems just one or 2 quirks to resolve

On boot up it takes a bit of time then boots to a screen that says can't find drives 1&3 to continue press F1 it then boots up the OS, how do I get it to boot straight to the OS.

Dxdiag reports using generic video drivers so can't tell which video card is organically provided, any ideas how I find out the sort of video card and then download the drivers to suit.

Cheers

Have you checked the BIOS to make sure it's not attempting to boot drives that don't physically exist ?

Always worth a dig around after messages like this.

Thanks CB

All the drives seems to be on in the bios, how do I find out which should or should not be on?

Any ideas how I can ID the video card as the website gives me too many options?

All the drives seems to be on in the bios, how do I find out which should or should not be on?

Open up the computer and note the actual drives and devices present and how they are cabled. The BIOS typically will inventory all interfaces and ports. Manually defining the drives and how they are connected will eliminate the time delays associated with the BIOS scanning for a drive and then waiting the timeout period for no response. If drives 1 & 3 are not present, set those entries in the BIOS to disabled or not installed.


Any ideas how I can ID the video card as the website gives me too many options?

Dell's support section only lists three drivers for the Optiplex 280 as they shipped it - two ATI drivers for discrete add-in adapters and a Intel driver for the integrated motherboard video. Looking at where the monitor cable is connected to the computer and how many possible connections are present will indicate which you are using. You can also enter the machine's service tag number at Dell's site and pull up the as-shipped configuration. If you have installed a video adapter yourself, perhaps after acquiring the computer, just look at the adapter for model info and visit the adapter manufacturer's website.

When you go down to the drives it will tell you what is there. If it says "Unknown" then turn it off. Since it is saying Drive 1 and 3, I would turn off 1 and 3.