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Computer not detecting new HD

C

CrazySaint

Platinum Member
I bought a refurb 'cuda IV 80GB from newegg a few weeks ago, the 30 day guarantee is about up (ends the 17th) and I still don't have my new computer, so I decided I better test it in this computer. Its a PII-350 with 256MB SDRAM, a 12GB HD, Biostar B6TBA i440BX motherboard OEM box (Pionex brand). For some reason the CD-ROM is the primary master and the 12GB HD is the secondary master. I put the new HD in the case and installed it as the secondary slave, set the jumper to cable select, plugged in the power supply to the HD, hooked everything up, and booted the PC. When it posted, I entered the BIOS, and clicked IDE HDD Auto Detect. I skipped primary master/slave as there are no HDDs on the primary IDE channel, just the CD-ROM. It detected the 12GB just fine as secondary master, but nothing came up as secondary slave. I hit "y", anyway. I tried booting several times, it would either make it to the second bootup screen (hardware summary in a big table) and hang with the HDD led on, or it would say "SYSTEM DISK ERROR...PLEASE INSERT SYSTEM DISK", so I stuck in the windows startup disk, and it wouldn't recognize ANY of my HDDs, only the CD-ROM. So I opened up the case, made sure all the cables were securely plugged into the new HDD, hooked it up back, tried again and the same thing happened. So I opened up the case again, and set the jumper on the new HDD to "slave", hooked it back up, booted, went into BIOS and did the auto detect thing again. I skipped the primary master/slave again, it detected the old HDD as secondary master, but when it tried to auto-detect the secondary slave, it hung. Is it possible that its simply too large for the BIOS to detect? There's a jumper setting to force the HDD into a 32GB mode, should I try that?
 
Did you change the jumper on the 12GB hard drive? There is one setting for Master w/ no slave, and one setting for Master w/ Slave.
 
I just put a 40GB hdd in a motherboard with a 440BX chip. You will probably have to do a BIOS upgrade if the jumper doesn't work. The motherboard I worked on had a 8GB limit before the update. Before I did the BIOS update the motherboard would not see the new hdd either.

Another point to consider is that the 440BX chipset is limited to only ATA33. I you want to use the full potential of the drive you will have to use one of the ATA100 cards and a ATA66/100 cable (with the blue end).
 
Thx for the info. I'm only really interested in using it in this computer to test it out. Its actually intended for use in the new P4 rig I'm putting together but don't have all the parts for yet. Btw, are jumper settings pretty much standard across HDs or are they pretty specific to each drive?
 
Originally posted by: CrazySaint
Btw, are jumper settings pretty much standard across HDs or are they pretty specific to each drive?
Click to expand...

Each hdd has different jumper settings, even hdd's from the same company. Check the manufacturer's web site with the hdd's model number to get the correct jumper settings. Sometimes the jumper settings are printed on the hdd.
 
I couldn't find the jumper on the old HDD, so I disconnected it and set tne 80GB HDD as the secondary master, but the BIOS hung in the IDE HDD Auto Detect screen again when it was trying to detect the secondary master. I guess the BIOS flash will be the next move. Btw, does anybody know if hanging on the auto-detect screen sounds more like a BIOS problem or a HDD problem? It seems to me that if the HDD simply didn't work, the BIOS just wouldn't detect it.
 
doesn't sound like you've proved it one way or the other. can you try it on someone elses newer comp? just by it's self and set it to master\singlecuda jumpers
good luck
 
I wish I could, but unfortunately, that's not really an option. Until I get my new PC put together, this old PII-350 is the newest PC I've got access to, or at least, access to take apart.
 
Originally posted by: CrazySaint
Btw, does anybody know if hanging on the auto-detect screen sounds more like a BIOS problem or a HDD problem? It seems to me that if the HDD simply didn't work, the BIOS just wouldn't detect it.
Click to expand...

Hanging at the auto-detact is exactly the same problem I had, it was fixed with a BIOS upgrade. Even after the new hdd was formated on another computer and then put back in the box with the 440BX mobo, the BIOS would hang at auto-detect. After the BIOS update it works perfectly. Be aware that the BIOS update might not enable drives as large as 80GB to be recognized.
 
w00t! Success! I checked the biostar site for bios updates, there was one BIOS up there, but it didn't mention anything about enabling larger HDDs to be recognized, so I decided to pop Biostar an e-mail in the faint hope that they would even bother responding to an e-mail about a 4-5 year old motherboard, and figuring since this is Sunday (around 9 or 10PM, no less), the soonest I would likely get a reply would be sometime Monday. To my very pleasant surprise, I got a reply in about 20 minutes, that said that this motherboard will only recognize HDDs up to 32GB (as well as politely informing me that they no longer support this motherboard 'cuz its so old). Thankfully, this HDD has a jumper setting which limits its capacity to 32GB! I set the jumper, hooked it up, and it worked without a hitch!
 
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