hard disk trouble

[Gav]

can anyone help.... my son and I have just finish building a new desk top. pressed the start buttern and came with no HHD detected on the screen, he has used the 1 year hard disk in the PC but everything else is ny... any idears??? to what could be the problem...

[Guest Wolfeymole]

Hi Gav

 

Welcome to Extreme Tech Support - Free PC Help

 

Are you saying the HDD is 1 year old?

 

Is it a SATA or an IDE drive?

 

Have you checked all ribbon cables and power connectors to the board and drive?

[Gav]

Hej, yes it is, I will check which type HDD it is and do a cable check when I get back from work.. does the old HHD need to be formated before it can be used with the new mother board ?

 

Gav...

[Guest Wolfeymole]

Yes it will but you can do that when installing the operating system.

[Dalo Harkin]

Just a quick note:-

If it is SATA and there is more than 1 SATA port on the MOBO there will be a section in the BIOS for selecting the one that the HDD is in to the TOP OF THE LIST -

[sean2390]

Also make sure that its got its own power molex connection with no other fans or drives inbetween.

[Dalo Harkin]

SATA no longer use MOLEX they are 7 pin SATA cables

[sean2390]

I thought they were using an IDE drive. hehe my bad.

[Dalo Harkin]

we don't know yet - awaiting reply on which interface the drive is.

[Gav]

HDD trouble

 

Hi again, the PC spec is as follows- MB Asus P5KPL, intel core 2 duo 3 Ghz 1333Mhz FSB, ram -Kingston DDR II 2x 2Gb 800 Mhz kit, grafic - club HD3650, 512mb GDDR 2 128bit, HDD- seagat 160 barracuda idl drive cable. the PC starts up showing a the bios producer screen with select Tab or Delete we can come into the bios menuen and the HHD drive is show as master IDL, we have set the time and exit with save the changes, PC trys to boot the screen show a blue back round for ½ a second with some text goes back to a black screen with the list of hard ware ending with press F1 to continue, we do that and it ends back at Tab or Delete screen again, we have checked the cables, and HDD has its own power lead, there is no CD drive put in at the moment....any suggests???

 

Gav....

[Dalo Harkin]

Have you set the HDD to the first boot device?

[Gav]

Yes it is... first and if we mart it in the bios press enter it shows the HDD size and serial nr.....

 

Gav

[Guest Wolfeymole]

Have you actually installed windows yet Gav?

[Dalo Harkin]

Ok and on the HDD cable there are 3 IDE ports there is a blue one that should be attached to the Motherboard and then the HDD should be furthest away (not the one in the middle) and on the back of the HDD it should be set to MASTER.

Or if you are looking at installing an optical drive later on the HDD should be on the middle of the lead and the HDD set to SLAVE.

 

I apolagise if this sounds like you dont know what you are doing, but we need to ascertain what you have or haven't done yet

[Gav]

HDD trouble

 

We took the HDD out and put back in the old PC, did a formate and install XP pro again which worked ok in the old PC....

 

Gav

[Dalo Harkin]

You cannot install XP on one computer and then it run in another, it doesn't work - you need to install XP on the HDD in the new PC

[Gav]

the HDD is set to master while I am not sure if the blue IDE is in the mother board or if we used the middle to the HDD....will check

Gav...

[Gav]

should we just formate the HDD on the old PC and then put over to the new?? and try and install XP again ??

Gav

[Dalo Harkin]

You can format the HDD when its in the new pc when you install windows.

[Guest Wolfeymole]

Get an optical drive while your at it gav.

[Gav]

whats the best way of doing the format ??? running the XP CD after the changing the boot start from HDD to CD in the bios??? closing down and restart?? little bit new for us...

 

Gav..

[Dalo Harkin]

Right - install the HDD and the optical drive - set the optical to the first boot device.

run the disk and then when it asks where to install XP to there are some options below one is format with a purple rubber from memory click that and then install XP to the new partition

[Gav]

OK we can take the one from the old PC, does the jumper have to put back to slave on the HDD ? ..

Gav..

[Dalo Harkin]

Depends how long the IDE cable is - if you are installing them in the PC to stay then its easier for the optical to be MASTER and the HDD SLAVE - if you are just running the HDD and the optical outside the PC then it doesnt matter which you have it on as long as the jumper on the back of the optical and the HDD match where they are connected on the IDE cable.

[Gav]

OK we will try that and reply later today... thanks for the help so far really appreciate it

Gav..