I have just purchased a SATA Barracuda 160gb hard drive as a secondary drive. I have plugged everything in correctly but my machine will not recognize it FULL STOP. I have been into the Bios and selected Drives but the Hard Drive is not located within the list. I have unplugged my original Hard drive and started up my computer with this new Hard Drive and although the computer pops up with a failed message it does however mention the Hard Drives Capacity. This tells me that the computer does recognize the hard drives size. I have also been into the 'computer management' and the drive is not picked up in there either.:chk: Can somebody please tell whats going on and how to resolve it. AndyP
Welcome to hardwareforums par1sons! :beer: I'm going to start off by putting the info that you've given us into bullet points (to clear up any misunderstandings and help anyone else reading this ) The drive is a brand new 160GB SATA drive It is the second hard drive in your computer (and the operating system is stored on the first drive) You have not managed to find any mention of the drive in your BIOS when you start the computer without the HDD with the operating system on it an error message is displayed which states the capacity of the new HDD (160GB) is all of the above correct (and is it missing anything?). Just a few questions now Is your first Hard Drive also SATA? What is the make and model of your motherboard? (The BIOS version would also be nice if you can find it, although its probably irrelevant) [OT] I can't say if I'm going to be on a computer for the next few days, so unless someone else adopts this thread I'm afraid you'll have to wait for me to get back! (but I normally take every chance possible to get on a computer ) [/OT]
Hi, I have no idea what the Bios is neither the motherboard. Im not really a computer minded person but know enough to get around. All i can tell you is my computer is a dell pentium 4, XP, Dell home editions computer. Its only just over a year old and yes the the original HDD is in fact SATA Technology. The HDD is used a HDD off ebay.....i know i know. (link below to ebay item) Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 160Gb Hard Drive SATA on eBay, Internal External Hard Drives, Drives Storage, Computing (item 130148584343 end time 04-Sep-07 18:30:00 BST) I have changed hard drives and roms in the past without any problems but this sucker just aint playing ball. What are the difference between, Barracuda, western etc HDD's? Is it just the name of them or is there something slightly different about them all? Thank for your help AndyP
very quick reply (have to go for my bus soon), can you try the hdd in another computer? if it works then the problem is most likely with your computer...
Here is some info i have managed to get whilst playing around this morning. ORIGINAL HDD: Bios Version A04 Dell DM051 A04 BARRACUDA HDD: I took out the original HHD and replaced with this BARRACUDA and booted the system ok. When the computer started i was prompted with a black screen saying the below. DRIVE 1 NOT FOUND: SERIAL ATA, SATA-2 RAID VOLUMES: ID — NAME ———— LEVEL ——— STRIP — SIZE —— STATUS — BOOTABLE 0 —— OS —— RAIDI (MIRROR) — N/A — 149.1GB —— FAILED ——— NO PHYSICAL DESKS: PORT — DRIVEMODEL — SERIAL# — SIZE — —TYPE/STATUS(VOL ID) 0 —— ST3160023A3 — 3J50JTAE — 149.1GB — ERROR OCCURED (0) Having read that which didnt fill me with confidence i did enter the Bios setup and here is what i found: BIOS - 'BOOT SEQUENCE' SAYS: ONBOARD SATA HARD DRIVE (NOT PRESENT) BIOS - 'DRIVES' SAYS: 'DRIVE 0': SATA-0' is selected as 'ON' (hhd details are showing memory size) Its almost like this drive is faulty because despite the computer picking up on its memory size its a little concerning when the computer gives me an 'error occured' message and Bootable 'NO'......HHHHMMMMM One other thing, on my motherboard i have two available HHD ports, one which is being currently used by the original and a spare for another HHD being added, however, when i swapped and plugged the original HHD into the spare port and re-booted, the computer prompted me with a message which said 'DRIVE NOT FOUND'. Could this mean that the spare port is faulty. I hope you can help AndyP
are you using XP SP2 as versions of XP lower than SP1 can only recognize HDD up to 137Gb install PCWizard, it will tell us all a lot of info that may not mean much to you, but will help us diagnose your problem, the info we need: Operating System (XP SP2) motherboard manufacturer & BIOS manufacturer (& hopefully version) reset the BIOS to set it to defaults if you don't know how to reset the BIOS look here Edit: Barracuda HDDs are made / manufacturered by Seagate & western are actually Western Digital who are another company who manufacture HDDs Edit: as Impy said can you test the HDD you purchased on a friends computer
no problem, i don't always ever word, although i'm improving Edit: some of the long serving members of HWF will probably have a few stories about me
Thanks for all your help. The motherboard is a 'dell owg261' Im running off windows XP service pack 2. I have had my tech friend round and it seems as thou i may have a faulty HHD or maybe because he has never dealt with SATA HHD's before he was a little lost. We checked everything today and one thing sprung to mind, why is it when i go into the Bios and go into 'DRIVES' and select SATA0 'ON' & SATA2 'ON' my machine will then not boot up with both drives connected....weird! Everything is working fine in terms of cables SATA ports and power supply so im left with two options...is the HHD faulty or do i need to turn something on in the Bios to get this new HHD recognized by my computer. Even if i wanted to install XP on this new HHD, i wouldn't be able to because the computer will not recognize the new drive when connected to the PC on its own, i get a 'FAILED' message lobbed in my face every time. Anymore info required, how can i find out what Bios im using and its version number?? AndyP
Here is the info i think all you guys have been after. What about Bios a update, could that do it??? Why is it also when i put both 'SATA 0' & 'SATA 2' to the 'ON' position and then re-boot the system i get prompted with a failed message. Surly both should have 'ON' selected. To activate 'SATA 2' it has been turned to 'ON....does it?? THE PLOT THICKENS! AndyP
