BIOS won't recognize replacement hard drive in ThinkPad R51

[Questing]

I bought this new ThinkPad R51 laptop for school this fall. It came with a 20GB hard drive, that turned out to be only 14GB because of IBM's hidden recovery partition. It's way too small, so I bought a 40GB Seagate replacement drive from NewEgg.

The BIOS won't recognize the drive. I reseated it several times. I took the cooling cage, or whatever, off the Hitachi and used it on the Seagate, still won't recognize it. When I put the cage back on the Hitachi and put it back in the laptop, it works fine. BIOS shows the Hitachi drive but not the Seagate when it's installed.

It's too late to exchange the drive at NewEgg because I was in finals when it arrived and haven't had time to get to it until now between holiday festivities and work. I sent Seagate a message but haven't heard back yet since it's the weekend.

Any suggestions??

 

[Questing]

I forgot to mention the specs on the laptop:

ThinkPad R51 2883-2XU, Pentium M 1.5GHz, 512MB RAM, 20GB 4200rpm HDD, 14.1 XGA(1024x768) TFT LCD, Intel Extreme, 24x24x24x/8x CD-RW/DVD, Intel 802.11b/g wireless(MPCI), Modem(CDC), 10/100 Ethernet(LOM), UltraNav, Secure Chip, 6 cell Li-Ion battery, WinXP Pro

 

[Uncle Bob]

Should be plug and play, so it sound like you may have a faulty seagate drive

Listen very carefully when you switch the laptop on to hear if the drive spins when it gets power (you may need to put your ear close to the hard drive).

 

[Questing]

Thanks for the suggestion, Uncle Bob, and for letting me know that it should be plug and play.

When the old (working) drive starts up, it makes a gradually increasing whirring sound that dies off gradually when the Windows screen starts up. When this (replacement) drive starts up, it makes a high-pitched chugga, chugga sound, starting and stopping, starting and stopping. It keeps making this sound even while I go into CMOS. It's not recognized by CMOS or by the Seagate Wizard. The sound stops when I power off the computer.

I tried both cable-select and single Master jumper settings. Neither worked. Something's definitely wrong.

 

[Uncle Bob]

that does sound like you have a faulty unit. get an RMA from your supplier

 

[Questing]

Thanks for your help! I feel a lot more confident approaching Seagate now!

 

[Questing]

I received a prompt exchange on my hard drive from Seagate and checked out the new hard drive in my ThinkPad. It is indeed plug'n'play. It works!

Thanks for your help!