joddle

I know its a bit of a cheek asking a quesiton when I already have an issue running on another thread but in a way the issues are linked. I want to rebuild my PC as I have so many uninstalled programmes bits and bobs around and loads of stuff has been installed which I dont need so I thought a rebuild would be a good start. In order to do that I also invested in a new 500gb drive to act as my new c:\ drive as the old one had become very noisey and seemed ot be slowing down - ie read write operations took a lot longer on that drive than on the other similar drive installed on the same machne. Anyway - to cut to the chase - when I ordered the new drive I failed to notice it was SATA2 and not SATA - (my fault - I should have read the spec) and when I tried to install it, alhthough the bios seemed to know it was there, the pc and OS did not. It would not install during a new install of XP and at the part where the install normally asks about the partition you wish to use I simply got a message saying no hard diisk was available. I put the HD into a caddy and still it was not recognised by any computer I attached it to even though I went through the disk managment area each time to see if it was there. I have come to the conclusion this must be due to one of two issues - a) the HD is a dud - or b) SATA2 is somehow not compatable with my system as all other SATA drives seem to all work fine. Am I missing something here or shoulld I simply return the disk?

Thanks guys - it is SATA - its my description of a ribbon cable that is off - i only used that as the cable is flat and thin rather then round in section. Will try and get another cable ASAP but my local shop does not have 70cm ones which is what I need. Ebay may well be the solution... The PC has four SATA ports but the only cables are those fixed to the existing HDs and the DVD deck.

I was wondering about the ribbon lead - it is much more frail than the other one and not a proper right Angle termination at the HD as it should be and I noticed that it does not have such a secure grip so I suppose that might be responsible - I will try a new SATA lead as soon as I can get one but non of the shops here seem to stock them long enough - I need 70cms - also is it worth tryng a different SATA socket?

I am running a Dell optiplex 755 under XP pro SP3 and when I got it it had a single 500gb HD. I needed some form of data security so added a brand new 500gb drive in the spare bay which all seemed to work fine for several weeks. One day however I turned on the PC and the second drive appeared not to be there - I rebooted and checked the bios which confirmed the disk was present but it did not later appear on "my computer" nor in the disk management area either. I turned the pc off again - switched off the sata socket on the bios and rebooted. Then closed down again and reset the bios to on for the drive and hey presto it was back. This has happened several times now and a few times I have also tried removing the disk and putting it in a caddy and it always then seems fine. I am considering rebuilding the PC as I have too much junk on it but wanted to use the second drive to install a RAID1 system but am now worried about the "disappearing" HD - Any clues as to what may be going on anyone? Is this a disk fault or something else? When it is running and I use Baleric it reports the HDs are "healthy".

At long last have found the problem and been able to deal with it. I tried all the solutions given so now I have a very clean PC with new memory (plus the old now) but it all came down to a faulty piece of Hardware. This came to light whilst using Dell "on line chat" as I realised my service tag still allowed a month for support. The nice lady there took me through many possibilities and then suggested I strip out everything which was not on the machine when it left Dell and she was Able to say exactly what that configuration was and after doing that hey presto - problem gone. I then started to put back the cards one at a time until the fault reappeared - and it was the fire wire card I had installed just after I bought the machine and really had thought of as an original component. Now no problems at all - I can load the OS fine and it sleeps OK and does not crash on my son's favorite game - totally sorted. However the dealings on this thread have prompted me to now consider a full rebuild using a RAID so I have an automatic backup of my data but I am not sure how I go about it. I intend buying another new 500gb hard disk and then starting from there (and removing the old hard disk so I have two brand new ones) Where do I find instructions on how to set up a RAID configuration? and do I need to buy/find new software for this?

Not sure if this is relevant but this particular PC has seems regularly to be engaged in a lot of HD activity even whilst nothing is actually happening - none of my other PCs all running XP and two with 2 disks do this - could it be a symptom of what is wrong or just another unrelated issue? I have virus checked and malware checked the PC several times over and also run all the Dell and MS diagnstics all of which come up with nothing.

Hi - the pc has always been running XP pro - at least all the time I have had it. At this very moment it is running XP as I write. It may have had another system in the past but not that I know of. I am using a Dell os system disk XP pro SP3 to do the reinstall I did as suggested, took out all the old disks put a new one in and then tried an install from the xpSP3 cd disk. It identified a new disk then formated it - it then copied the files to the HD then said it would reboot to continue intallation. It then rebooted and showed the windows screen and then showed a new screen with stages 1 and 2 completed - it would start to install XP saying the process would take 39 mins - but after about 4 mins it blue screened when it was "installing devices" at stage 3. - I never get to stage 6 to install SATA drivers. re the bios - I installed the latest Bios from Dell a while back hoping that would cure the problem but it has made no diffference - I know the bios is not at the "factory" level - should I reset it again before installing? or does somthing need to be set specifically for an XP installation? I do have a floppy drive on the machine but never used it.

Now you have lost me - I had a 500gb disk c:\ on which is my current OS XP pro SP3 - this is how my machine was bought but I needed additional space for backups so added a second disk which is seen on the system manager as as another 500gb disk but e:\ - The PC only has SATA connections so both disks are SATA as is the DVD/CD It matters not if i have one or two drives installed - I still get the same error when I try and make the system sleep. All I want to do not is use a new HD and do a clean install of XP but it fails with the same error message at stage3 of the install - all the files appear to be copied to the new HD but it is the installation process itself which causes the problem. I did notice however that some of the bios settings are not at the factory set level so over th next day or two I will reset the bios to factory and try again - unless anyone out there says it is not a good idea!

As I added my second drive as en entity - ie with its own drive letter I suppose the raid situation is not relevent here

Just to add - the blue screen has no numbers anywhere - it is at the top left of the screen and says ***Hardware Malfunction call you hardware vendor for support NMI parity check / memory parity error *** system has halted This is the same message as when ltring to load the OS and also when I put the PC into Sleep mode - also it came up once several times during a game my son was playing - but only on one game

Hi - not sure what this means - The PC came with one drive - and had blue screen problems then whenever I tried to make it "sleep" but as I don't use that facitlity I did not bother too much - perhaps I should have!. Anyway I have since added a second HD to act as a safety net for data - IE I copy important files to the second drive as and when I need. I have tried to replace the original drive - the one with the operating system - but took care first to remove the second hd and close the sata (ie so it was exactly like when I got it) but whatever I do I still get the memory parity error half was through the OS installation - although by old drive still works fine!

Hi The details of the PC are as below I tried removing one stick of ram but the problem is the same - did not try swapping for the other but someone asked me is the ram the right type? it was what the PC came with but it was 2nd hand. Operating System System Model Windows XP Professional Service Pack 3 (build 2600) Install Language: English (United States) System Locale: English (United States) Dell Inc. OptiPlex 755 System Service Tag: D2BNG3J (support for this PC) Chassis Serial Number: D2BNG3J Enclosure Type: Mini-Tower Processor a Main Circuit Board b 2.33 gigahertz Intel Core2 Duo 64 kilobyte primary memory cache 4096 kilobyte secondary memory cache 64-bit ready Multi-core (2 total) Not hyper-threaded Board: Dell Inc. 0GM819 Serial Number: ..CN137407BR06T0. Bus Clock: 1333 megahertz BIOS: Dell Inc. A17 04/06/2010 Drives Memory Modules c,d 1000.21 Gigabytes Usable Hard Drive Capacity 787.07 Gigabytes Hard Drive Free Space TSSTcorp CDDVDW TS-H653G [Optical drive] 3.5" format removeable media [Floppy drive] HITACHI HDS725050KLA360 [Hard drive] (500.11 GB) -- drive 0, s/n ZAJK1TKF, rev K2AOAB0A, SMART Status: Healthy MDT MD5000AACS-00D6B0 [Hard drive] (500.11 GB) -- drive 1, s/n MDT-MCAU40586908, rev 01.01A01, SMART Status: Healthy 2014 Megabytes Usable Installed Memory Slot 'DIMM_1' has 1024 MB (serial number EA89A412) Slot 'DIMM_3' is Empty Slot 'DIMM_2' has 1024 MB (serial number 1E99A419) Slot 'DIMM_4' is Empty Local Drive Volumes c: (NTFS on drive 0) 500.11 GB 423.64 GB free e: (NTFS on drive 1) 500.11 GB 363.43 GB free

Many thanks - I will try that - but my handbook says memory should be in pairs so I don't think I can remove just one stick - or can I ? when I tried that before the fan went mad so I shut the PC down and put it back.

Hi - I have a dell optiplex 755 which although running OK could do with a clear out - especially as the HD is very noisy and slow and I though a new HD and clean install would help. I have bought a new HD and so loaded it into the drive bay ready to do a clean install with XP Pro SP3. All went well at first - the normal installation found the new drive and so I quick formatted it then it loaded the files to the HD and asked to be restarted to completer the installation. This all seemed to go OK but when it got the stage 3, loading drivers, after a few moments it crashed to a blue screen with: Hardware malfunction - NMI Parity Check Memory parity error I have since run several memory tests and Dells own diagnostics in full and no problems were found - however the error reminded me of some problems I had a while back which may give a clue to the problem. If I try to close the PC into sleep mode the same message appears On just one of my kids games the system crashes after a time with the same message However all other programames seem to funciton just fine. If I use my old disk the PC boots up fine and in fact I am using it now. If I try and install the system again on a new disk I get the memory parity error at exactly the same time. Any help please.