Help me! "Primary Hard Disk Drive 0" not recognized!

[Ikonomi]

Argh, this is crazy.

I was trying to put a new 200 GB hard drive in my friend's computer and something went wrong. It booted into Windows the first time, but the new drive wasn't recognized. I switched the jumpers into master/slave configuration, and tried to reboot, and now the computer won't recognize the old hard drive.

Long story short, I ended up putting everything back the way it was, with the old Maxtor 40 GB on CS on the primary connection. I tried resetting the CMOS memory and everything, and still nothing. The POST still tells me that the primary hard disk drive 0 is not recognized. Everything is set up exactly the way it was originally.

I don't know what I did or what to do. Can someone please help me?

 

[boyRacer]

What kind of drive is it? Isnt there a limitation for drives over 137gb?

 

[natto fire]

I would avoid using the CS on the Maxtor drive, or any IDE drive for that matter. Switch the Maxtor to master and see if that works.

Also I had the same problem in Windows when I first got my SATA drive. When I went to the administrative tools/Computer management the drive showed up there. I formatted and it worked fine after that. Did the same thing with my new 200 GB SATA drive.

 

[Ikonomi]

I tried it in master and it just wouldn't boot... I tried every jumper configuration.

I'm heading back to his house now. We'll see what happens.

 

[brigden]

Double-check the IDE cables to make sure they're in properly.

 

[rudeguy]

its got to be the jumpers. Please tell us what all is hooked up to each cable. Try setting the old HD as master/single and have it be the first and only thing on that cable. Tell us how it goes from there.

 

[ElFenix]

how old is the computer?

 

[kevman]

look at the BIos for the computer's motherboard. might have to upgrade it to support the larger drive.

 

[KarenMarie]

This might be really stupid but I have done this myself...

Make sure the little jumpers are on the correct pins. WinXP, in particular, is very picky about that. I had to try every concievable combination (including no jumper on the pins at all) before it finally worked. And even then... well, I removed the battery for 10 minutes, plugged it all back it and it finally worked.

Also make sure the ribbon is not damages. I have seen that happen a few times too.

Just out of curiousity... what brand hard drive is the 200GB?

 

[Ikonomi]

Okay, let's see. Now it won't recognize either drive on the primary IDE chain. Both of them are currently connected.

IDE cables are properly connected. I even tried a different cable to make sure it wasn't the old one. No dice.

On the primary IDE chain, the Maxtor 40 GB is on the end and the new Seagate 200 GB is in the middle. Right now they're both in cable select again. I'm going to switch them to master/slave again in a minute. I tried booting just the old Maxtor set as master, and it didn't work.

The computer is a Dell workstation, two or three years old. Dual Xeon 1.5 GHz processors, one SCSI drive (I don't know why), and the two IDE drives.

I hope it's not a matter of upgrading the BIOS... I wouldn't know how to go about that. My friend lost/packed all his manuals and can't find them.

I'm going to check the jumpers again. I've been messing with them all night. The drive is a Seagate, like I said earlier.

Hrm.

 

[Ikonomi]

Okay, on a whim I tried setting them both as master. They were both recognized in BIOS as hard drives (instead of unknown devices), but still wouldn't boot.

So then I set the Seagate as master on the second connector and the Maxtor as slave on the first, and they went back to unrecognized. In fact, all four IDE devices were unrecognized.

Then I switched it around so the Seagate was master on the first connector and the Maxtor was slave on the second, and they're recognized as hard disks again, but they aren't booting.

 

[Brutuskend]

My guess is that now the drives have switched letters and the "BOOT" drive doesn't have windows on it. Try using the Maxblast disk to copy all info to the second drive and see if that works.

EDIT: You DID format it didn't you?

 

[Ikonomi]

Yeah, it's formatting now.

The problem was that neither of them were being recognized up until now.

But I think you may have found the solution. I think you got it. We'll have to wait for it to format and see.

 

[ScrapSilicon]

should be using Seagate'sDiscWiz ..might want to read this as well..

 

[Ikonomi]

Woot, got it all running on Windows XP.

Except...

The SCSI drive (bet you forgot about that) is now C: and can't be re-assigned.

The old drive is D: with the complete Windows 2000 installation on it.

The new drive is G:, and the computer boots into Windows XP from that.