Please delete

[mgo]

Old hard drive died. Trying to install new hard drive (Seagate 7200.7 Baracuda). Bios cannot detect hard drive. Power and round cables snugly connected. Any suggestions would be appreciated. TIA.

 

[FlyingPenguin]

Some specifics? What size drive? What's your mobo? What OS and service pack? Is this EIDE or SATA?

Some hardware and OS combinations can't recognize EIDE drives over 137Gb. You need a controller that supports 48 bit LBA and Win2K SP2 or WinXP SP1 at a minimum.

 

[mgo]

Sorry for the lack of specifics.

Size drive: 120 GB
Mobo: Unknown - Micron PC Millennia model
EIDE
Windows XP home edition (service packs unknown) - not yet installed. the computer comes with 2 disks: Operating System Recovery CD (which kindly advises that no hard drive is detected) and System drivers CD which wants the Operating system Recovery CD installed first, which won't because it can't detect a hard drive.

 

[MTDEW]

When you say the bios doesnt detect the hard drive is that EXACTLY what you mean?
You entered the bios and checked and it cant autodetect the hard drive and you cant manually set the hard drive parimeters?

 

[MTDEW]

And from what i read of your post, you are using recover cd's to try to install your OS?
Not an actual winxp cd?

If so, you may need to format the drive before use, i'd suggest to format it in NTFS.

 

[birdpup]

The hard drive's manufacturer should have a diagnostic utility you can download, copy/install to a floppy, and configure the hard drive for use.
Western Digital Data Lifeguard
Seagate SeaTools Diagnostic Suite
Maxtor PowerMax
Hitachi Drive Fitness Test

How old is the computer? The motherboard & bios may not be new enough to support large hard drives if it is a PII or possibly a PIII. If the computer is more recent, and I expect it is, the bios may need to be updated or at least set to an automatic detection setting for the hard drives.

*Edit* reread and noticed the Seagate and also realized that the drive jumper may not be set properly for its placement in the system. There will be a small electrical jumper next to the cable connection and power supply connection. This jumper needs to be properly placed to set the drive as either a Master (primary) or a Slave (secondary) for that cable. If this is the only hard drive on the cable, then it needs to be set either as a Master, a single, or have the jumper removed. There should be a diagram on the drive describing this position.

 

[mgo]

Yes, that is exactly what I mean.

I do not understand how to format the hard drive when the hard drive can't be recognozied.

I have the jumper set on master or single drive with limit drive capacity since the hard drive is not being recognized.

 

[montag451]

Try another cable.

 

[montag451]

And make sure there is power going to the drive - does it spin up?

 

[mgo]

I've tried a couple of cables and the hard drive does not spin up. In addition, I double checked to make certain power is going to the drive.

 

[mgo]

Tried different hard drive and it wasn't recognized either. Now thinking we need to update bios.

 

[mgo]

Now trying to use pci card as workaround.