Primary Hard Disk drive 0 not found help please!

Alright, in order to avoid a wall of text I'll post the short version here:

Last week or so the hard drive in my Dell Inspiron 9100 (circa 2004) started giving me the click of death, and I knew it was shot so I sought a replacement. The original HDD was a Hitachi Travelstar 7k60 (60 GB, 7200 RPM, 2.5 inch IDE drive). I shopped around online for a replacement, found the the Travelstar 7k100 100 gb version, also IDE and 7200 RPM, and bought it from newegg. I figured this would be a great upgrade at the same time, and I anticipated no difficulties as it was essentially just the next generation of what I had previously.

Well today I recieved the hard drive, popped the old one out, screwed the new one into the frame, and I keep getting the message "Primary Hard disk drive 0 not found" after the BIOS screen comes up. I tried physically popping it in and out to fix it, no cigar. I also tried running diagnostics, still didnt recognize it. if I press F2 on the boot screen, and go into BIOS, it doesnt recognize the hard drive. I have been searching the net for the past few hours in search of a solution and have not made any progress yet

If anyone can help me with this it woud be greatly appreciated!

Also, If you need any more information to help me reach a solution I'll be periodically checking on this thread and I'll be delighted to inform you!

Thanks!

 

If you can test your new drive in a different machine.
that failing it could be you need to buy a drive direct from dell (or possible ghost an image from the old one over).

I used to work at a PC store and once a guy came in with a ram module from a dell, he wanted an upgrade. After inspecting his ram i found it was identical to a regular 133 dimm except that where a regular dimm had round clips the dell had square...ensuring you had to buy from them at a higher price : (

hope thats not the case here
Good luck

 

Nah, the new hard drive is the exact same dimensions and physically looks the same as the old one.

 

Mavarik

On my Inspiron 600m, there is an adapter on the original hard drive that I had to put on the new drive so it would plug in correctly. Does your's have one? Just a shot in the dark...

E

 

Yes, the old hard drive had a housing/adaptor thingy around the actual Hard drive unit, and this makes it fit snugly into the bay. It was attached to the hard drive with 4 small screws.

I took it off the old drive and screwed the new drive into it, which again was the exact same dimensions as the old drive.

I'm really puzzled as to why it cant find the drive ;(

 

Try changing the IDE lead, in case it has a fault, and/or connection is completely home, on motherboard and drive. Is it with a notch to show sided, or, not (WRONG WAY ROUND ) - SOUNDS LIKE DAFT QUESTIONS, BUT ELIMINATES.
Also try your old drive again, if it works, I would think about RMA new drive, as possibly DOA.

 

Is the old cable 40, or, 80 cable - the new one might need later 80 cable

 

The adapter I meant fits on the pins of the drive, in my case. I just pulled mine out, and it is pretty obvious, so I think that is not the problem. If the 'bidness' end of the drives look the same, I would lean towards RMA time. You can also buy an adapter for a few bucks that will let you hook up a laptop drive to a desktop computer, might be worth a shot.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812203012

That has some hit and miss reviews, but will give you a starting place to look for one if you want one.

E