Installing new hard drive

  • Thread starter Thread starter King of Red Lions
  • Start date Start date
K

King of Red Lions

Hi, I appologise for what might seem such a trivial question. I have
bought a new harddrive as the other did not have enough space. I thought
phraphs I could just put the new one in the place of the existing one,
using all the same cables, but it would appear I was wrong. My computer
just isn't detecting the new hard drive. What can I do to fix this? Many
thanks in advance.
 
King of Red Lions said:
Hi, I appologise for what might seem such a trivial question. I have
bought a new harddrive as the other did not have enough space. I thought
phraphs I could just put the new one in the place of the existing one,
using all the same cables, but it would appear I was wrong. My computer
just isn't detecting the new hard drive. What can I do to fix this? Many
thanks in advance.
Click to expand...

Lets see if I have this correct. You just took out the old hard drive and
put in a new one ? When you took out the old hard drive, you took out all
the programs and the operating system with it. What operating system are
you using ? It may make a differance in the way things are installed.
Also the computer must be capiable of handling the larger drive. An easy
way to change drives is to use a free program found at the drive web site.
You install the drive as a slave ( by setting a jumper on the drive) and
boot off a floppy disk. Then following directions you make a duplicate of
the data on the new drive from the older one. Be careful if you get this
backwards you will loose all the data on the old drive. Then you take the
old drive out and change the jumper of the new one to Master.

Another way is to install the new drive and remove the old one. Then off a
boot floppy or maybe a CD you run a program called Fdisk. Then you format
the new drive and start loading the operating system. Then you load all the
programs on the drive.
 
Lets see if I have this correct. You just took out the old hard drive
and put in a new one ? When you took out the old hard drive, you took
out all the programs and the operating system with it. What operating
system are you using ? It may make a differance in the way things
are installed. Also the computer must be capiable of handling the
larger drive. An easy way to change drives is to use a free program
found at the drive web site. You install the drive as a slave ( by
setting a jumper on the drive) and boot off a floppy disk. Then
following directions you make a duplicate of the data on the new drive
from the older one. Be careful if you get this backwards you will
loose all the data on the old drive. Then you take the old drive out
and change the jumper of the new one to Master.

Another way is to install the new drive and remove the old one. Then
off a boot floppy or maybe a CD you run a program called Fdisk. Then
you format the new drive and start loading the operating system. Then
you load all the programs on the drive.
Click to expand...

I'm basically using the last method you spoke about. I removed the old one
and put the new one with the corect jumper settings in its place. I got
this far and tried running fdisk, but I am repeatedly presented with the
message 'no fixed disks present'! I'm running out of ideas.
 
You might have to use the BIOS configuration remove the old drive and detect the new one.
 
King of Red Lions said:
I'm basically using the last method you spoke about. I
removed the old one and put the new one with the corect jumper
settings in its place. I got this far and tried running
fdisk, but I am repeatedly presented with the message 'no
fixed disks present'! I'm running out of ideas.
Click to expand...


If your BIOS is correctly detecting new drive (the new drive should
appear on one of the BIOS setup utility's screens) then consider
if you have done the the following:

(1) partition the new drive
(2) format the partition
(3) mark the new partition as active (ISTR FDISK does this
automatically).

BTW you might want to add the new drive and still use the old drive
as the system drive.
 
King of Red Lions said:
If your BIOS is correctly detecting new drive (the new drive should
appear on one of the BIOS setup utility's screens) then consider
if you have done the the following:

(1) partition the new drive
(2) format the partition
(3) mark the new partition as active (ISTR FDISK does this
automatically).

BTW you might want to add the new drive and still use the old drive
as the system drive.
Click to expand...

I can't partition the new drive because it keeps telling me there is fixed
disk present when I do so
 
King of Red Lions said:
I can't partition the new drive because it keeps telling me
there is fixed disk present when I do so
Click to expand...


Seems like you got halfway through and then something happened.
You seem to have done something already to the hard drive.

I suggest you delete the partition(s) on the new drive and start
again. You can use FDISK to delete partitions.

You seem a bit uncertain about the process so, to be safe, do not
connect the original hard drive to the PC while you are doing this
stuff as it is easy to mess up your original system.

I don't know what OS you are using although it shouldn't really
matter except for running FDISK. Here are some guides to the
process:

http://www.lairgauche.com/format-fdisk-drive.html
http://www.techrescue.net/guides/prepdrvi.asp
http://www.pcguide.com/proc/setup/index.htm

One difficulty you face is that FDISK does not have a very user-
friendly interface. Partition Magic is much nicer but quite
pricey. It can run from floppy diskettes when you boot just like
FDISK can.
 
| >
| >>>> Hi, I appologise for what might seem such a trivial
| >>>> question. I have bought a new harddrive as the other did
| >>>> not have enough space. I thought phraphs I could just put
| >>>> the new one in the place of the existing one, using all the
| >>>> same cables, but it would appear I was wrong. My computer
| >>>> just isn't detecting the new hard drive. What can I do to
| >>>> fix this? Many thanks in advance.
| >>>
| >>> Lets see if I have this correct. You just took out the old
| >>> hard drive and put in a new one ? When you took out the old
| >>> hard drive, you took out all the programs and the operating
| >>> system with it. What operating system are you using ? It
| >>> may make a differance in the way things are installed. Also
| >>> the computer must be capiable of handling the larger drive.
| >>> An easy way to change drives is to use a free program found
| >>> at the drive web site. You install the drive as a slave ( by
| >>> setting a jumper on the drive) and boot off a floppy disk.
| >>> Then following directions you make a duplicate of the data on
| >>> the new drive from the older one. Be careful if you get this
| >>> backwards you will loose all the data on the old drive. Then
| >>> you take the old drive out and change the jumper of the new
| >>> one to Master.
| >>>
| >>> Another way is to install the new drive and remove the old
| >>> one. Then off a boot floppy or maybe a CD you run a program
| >>> called Fdisk. Then you format the new drive and start
| >>> loading the operating system. Then you load all the programs
| >>> on the drive.
| >>>
| >>>
| >>>
| >>
| >> I'm basically using the last method you spoke about. I
| >> removed the old one and put the new one with the corect jumper
| >> settings in its place. I got this far and tried running
| >> fdisk, but I am repeatedly presented with the message 'no
| >> fixed disks present'! I'm running out of ideas.
| >
| >
| > If your BIOS is correctly detecting new drive (the new drive should
| > appear on one of the BIOS setup utility's screens) then consider
| > if you have done the the following:
| >
| > (1) partition the new drive
| > (2) format the partition
| > (3) mark the new partition as active (ISTR FDISK does this
| > automatically).
| >
| > BTW you might want to add the new drive and still use the old drive
| > as the system drive.
|
| I can't partition the new drive because it keeps telling me there is
fixed
| disk present when I do so

Go to BIOS setup by pressing the appropiate key when powering up your
computer. (Mine is holding down the delete key) Then see what you can
change the setting to. My BIOS gives me a choice of Manual or Auto. If
you have a Auto, choose it and save it as you exit BIOS. It should see
the new drive when you try again.
 
Hi,

I'm guessing that you need to correct one of the following so that your
bios will see the drive

1. jumper setting on drive
2. cable needs to be oriented correctly with red stripe to pin 1 on mb and
pin 1 on drive.
3. Power cable needs to be plugged in tightly
3 blue end of data cable (if you have one with a blue end) must be connected
to mb.
4. bios needs to be set to AUTO-detect hard drive.

Once the bios sees the hdd it should be possible to think about partitioning
and formatting.
 
I would rather suggest you to kip the old drive as it was. than put the new
one as a slave on the same cable. make image of old to the new. Remove old
and put the new in the place of the old. But did first 1 to 4 as Jan told
you.

Boba Vancouver BC


Jan Alter said:
Hi,

I'm guessing that you need to correct one of the following so that your
bios will see the drive

1. jumper setting on drive
2. cable needs to be oriented correctly with red stripe to pin 1 on mb and
pin 1 on drive.
3. Power cable needs to be plugged in tightly
3 blue end of data cable (if you have one with a blue end) must be connected
to mb.
4. bios needs to be set to AUTO-detect hard drive.

Once the bios sees the hdd it should be possible to think about partitioning
and formatting.
Click to expand...
 
Hi,
I'm guessing that you need to correct one of the following so that
your
bios will see the drive

1. jumper setting on drive
2. cable needs to be oriented correctly with red stripe to pin 1 on mb
and pin 1 on drive.
3. Power cable needs to be plugged in tightly
3 blue end of data cable (if you have one with a blue end) must be
connected to mb.
4. bios needs to be set to AUTO-detect hard drive.

Once the bios sees the hdd it should be possible to think about
partitioning and formatting.
Click to expand...

Tried all those things and even got a friend who knows quite a lot about it
and still doesn't seem to work. I have installed dozens of hard drives
before and know what a simple task it actually is. I have set it to auto
and on start up it says it is trying to auto detect the hard drive but
stays saying that for ever. It just doesn't even detect it. It's so
strange!
 
Thats the way I did mine, but I formatted and fdisked with just the new
drive
on in case I wiped my existing drive.
I spent an age before trying to transfer data onto cdroms, which was a
waste of time as I could not get them to work (from dos), however they be
use
full as backups.


Maybe his hard drive is just duff???

Boba & Ilinka said:
I would rather suggest you to kip the old drive as it was. than put the new
one as a slave on the same cable. make image of old to the new. Remove old
and put the new in the place of the old. But did first 1 to 4 as Jan told
you.

Boba Vancouver BC
Click to expand...
 
King of Red Lions said:
Tried all those things and even got a friend who knows quite a lot about it
and still doesn't seem to work. I have installed dozens of hard drives
before and know what a simple task it actually is. I have set it to auto
and on start up it says it is trying to auto detect the hard drive but
stays saying that for ever. It just doesn't even detect it. It's so
strange!
Click to expand...

Did you buy the drive on ebay by any chance?
Maybe the drive is a duffer.
 
Hi, I appologise for what might seem such a trivial question. I have
bought a new harddrive as the other did not have enough space. I thought
phraphs I could just put the new one in the place of the existing one,
using all the same cables, but it would appear I was wrong. My computer
just isn't detecting the new hard drive. What can I do to fix this? Many
thanks in advance.
Click to expand...

Click here,
http://www.geocities.com/sheppola/hard.html

HTH :)



--
Free Windows/PC help,
http://www.geocities.com/sheppola/trouble.html
email shepATpartyheld.de
Free songs to download and,"BURN" :O)
http://www.soundclick.com/bands/8/nomessiahsmusic.htm
 
King said:
.... snip ...

Tried all those things and even got a friend who knows quite a
lot about it and still doesn't seem to work. I have installed
dozens of hard drives before and know what a simple task it
actually is. I have set it to auto and on start up it says it
is trying to auto detect the hard drive but stays saying that
for ever. It just doesn't even detect it. It's so strange!
Click to expand...

You may have an older bios that hits an overflow on that size of
drive. Likely to happen on drives over 8 Gig.
 
You have to have the bios detect it first and then you have to format it it
either with the install disk that came with if or if it didn't come with one
either a bootable cdrom with the operating system on it or a floppy boot
disk which has fdisk and format.exe on it. And it all depends on what
operating system you have to tell you how to procede but with a bootable
cdrom with the operating system it pretty much tells you what to do.
 
King said:
You may have an older bios that hits an overflow on that size of
drive. Likely to happen on drives over 8 Gig.
Click to expand...

Interesting, and if this were the case, how would I go about solving it?
 
Interesting, and if this were the case, how would I go about solving it?
Click to expand...

I had the same problem with a 40 gig Maxtor in my machine which is
fairly old. It worked fine with a 20 gig, but no matter how I
configured, it nothing worked with the 40. I hooked it up to a Maxtor
PCI Ultra 100 adapter card that was laying around unused. I bought it
some time ago at CompUSA, free, after rebate with a Maxtor 30 gig for
another machine. That did it. They seem to be available on Ebay
fairly cheap.
FWIW
YMMV
DFB
 
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