hard drive not recognized

:confused

 

Is your OS and Machine the type which has "plug and Play" ability, but it is just showing up when you look under My Computer or Win Explorer? Internal or External?

 

This is very vague..

Try disconnecting and reseating both the power and SATA/IDE cable at both the drive and the motherboard. What harddrive, motherboard do you have? Are jumpers set properly if needed?

Is the harddrive a new install/upgrade or did it just stop working? Is it recognized in bios, just not in Windows?

 

tonight I am ready to throw all computers in the trash!...

anyway...here is what happended...bought a motherboard for a DELL Optiplex GX260 Tower... found none of my cases would work with it... someone gave me a tower that was exact match..it had a motherboard and power supply in it...would not power up...motherboard would get a light on it but nothing else...switched out with the motherboard I bought. (reputable dealer , guaranteed not DOA)... hooked it all up..it did the same...so knew MB was okay...so I bought brandnew Power Supply... same thing...came to MG and found post about taking out battery...did that but NOW it won't reconize NEW 320 gig Maxtor hard drive... the CD drive is found...the floppy is found...the video is found...the memory is found... but hard drive is not found...tried it as master then cable select...no difference... then replaced the IDE cable... this HD says ATA on the top...:cry

 

What is the exact make and model of motherboard? How much power does the motherboard manual say the power supply for it should have? What brand and model of power supply are you using and how much power is it rated for? What is the rest of your hardware -- sound card? graphics card? CD/DVD drives? Any other hard drives?

 

Motherboard: Intel Pentium 4
socket 478 with 2.4 Ghz processor
2 slots for DR1 memory
1 PCI-E 16x
1 AGP slot


hardware:
video card with 1 Ghz memory
onboard sound /modem/
CD/ROM reader
320 Gig SATA Maxtor Hard drive (cannot format or set partitions as the system does not recognize it as being there, it powers
up and you can feel the heat from it and feel the vibration as the platter spins)

power supply is brand new replaced a 250 watt
with a 300 watt ATX Dell HP-P2507F3CP HP-P2507F3CP-300
512 RAM DDR 2100

plan to add if I can get this bug fixed:
DVD writeable drive
wireless card
USB card to expand USB slots and to put in a front mount
card reader
will have all in one printer scanner attached

 

In one post above you wrote "this HD says ATA on the top". But in your last post, with your hardware info you said "320 Gig SATA Maxtor Hard drive". I'm guessing it is a SATA hard drive ("Serial ATA") as opposed to the older ATA/IDE hard drive type -- is that correct? Is the data cable for it the newer narrow, usually yellow, type? (SATA) Or is the data cable the older wide gray ribbon type? (ATA)

If the drive is, as I'd guess, actually a SATA drive, then the next question is what operating system do you intend to install on this hard drive? Some version of Windows? Which one? Strange though it may seem, you will have to begin the installation of Windows before your hard drive can be detected. But exactly how you should proceed will depend on which version of Windows you plan to install. If it's Win XP it may be rather difficult, but we should be able to sort out the various problems as they occur. In addition to knowing which version of Windows (if indeed that's going to be your OS) I'd also like to know the specific brand and model motherboard you're using and whether you have a copy of your motherboard manual? If you don't you should be able to download a copy of it from the manufacturer's website at no charge.

 

Your HDD should have a jumper to enable/disable SATA I or SATA II interface
In your MOBO BIOS you may need to enable SATA

How to install SATA HDD:major
___________________________________________________________

How to install ATA HDD

 

I will look for this MOBO setting... we are having a wind storm and the reply I was writing is gone into the nether world... my connection is iffy in good weather...had to go to the good old dial up...

the motherboard is an ASUS LS-36... if that means anything...
it is like the ones they put in the 270's as well... if I can get this thing moving it should be a pretty decent system...

going with XP-PRO...

On top the HD it says both SATA and ATA...but I think the SATA is what it is...
it has the flat gray ribbon... both the one I took off and put on...
would a battery replacement help?

mean time I will go fiddle with it somemore..thanks for all the suggestions...I had it once the Mother board picture...might be on my other puter...will have to check...so I do not know right off hand exactly the specs for this... now I know why I bought my last system pre assembled... NO headaches like this...

:wave

 

If it has a flat ribbon it should be IDE.

What cable do you have connected to it?
http://content.answers.com/main/content/img/CDE/_SATPAT.JPG

If you have the standard motherboard that came with the computer it likely doesn't have SATA
http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/opgx260/en/sm/sysbrd.htm#1111216

You should see a label on the harddrive showing you what to do with the jumper to set it up as such. It should look something like this.
http://www.seagate.com/images/support/en/us/u5_family_1.gif
Check to see how your drives are configured whether they're master/slave or cable select. The drives should have a sticker or engraving on the case to show the jumper configuration. If not, you can look up the model numbers of the drives online or post them here.

If they are set for cable select put the OS drive at the very END of the cable and the secondary drive on the middle connection of the cable.

If this doesn't work, enable one the master(OS Drive) and the other the slave.

 

If it's the wide flat gray ribbon as in the picture sheesh posted then it's an ATA/IDE drive not a SATA. And then you do need to set the pin jumper on the drive correctly. Look for a diagram on the drive or go to the manufacturer's website because the jumper settings vary not only from one make of hard drive to another but can also vary from one model of hard drive to another by the same manufacturer. Furthermore it's sad but true that too often the sticker showing the various jumper settings isn't oriented correctly -- that is if you look at the jumper diagram and then at the jumper pins, without changing the driver orientation, they may not correlate correctly. You may have to, for example, look at the jumper diagram and then turn the drive 180 degrees to get the jumper pin layout to correlate correctly with the diagram.

 

Okay...NOW... I am not by anymeans a geek of the first order...I am still in the potty training stage... so bear with me please..

the hard drive is NOT SATA... I know that now... I have tried it without a jumper, on cable select and on master...same results... I even switched the IDE cables and tried it on the IDE 2 and see if it would be recognized...nope...it finds the CD drive no matter where I put that...so I pulled it out and put in an old 7 gig drive that had an operating system on it... didn't recognize that either... and the funny part is...when I tried a Hard drive at the very begining of all this it found that one... a 20gig with Win 2000 on it... but why won't it find this one?... there is no way to change much in the bios... it is either NONE or AUTO...I have it set to AUTO... does not find it... so where do I go from here... I have another sytem once I switch the power supply in it to see if it works.. that I can try the drive in...but that still won't make it work in this one...there has to be something to set somewhere...I cannot find the actual mother board manual..it only has that basic drawing of what is in the 260 but no real technical stuff on it...I know where to hook things up... but that is about all... and this is making my poor head bald from pulling my hair out...Women do not look good bald...oh and on the motherboard...it says DELL... whoopee... that is about all...the different components might have numbers and names...but the motherboard itself says dell...rolleyes attached is photo of the MB

 

I went to the link...and will read that as I can...and I will pull the hard drive and read it closely for any clues...and I will try again to install another harddrive...maybe I can some how work around this..if worse comes to worse, I will buy a case for it and turn it into an external...

thanks for the info...going to work on it probably in the morning after I can see again :zzz

 

Is this Dell motherboard the same one you described in an earlier post as "the motherboard is an ASUS LS-36"? Or have you switched motherboards? And if all you can see on the motherboard is the Dell name where did that Asus model number come from?

I did a internet search and found a Foxconn model LS-36 motherboard which, as far as I can tell, was manufactured by Foxconn for Dell. Maybe that's what you have? Or do you really see something about Asus on the motherboard?

It could be that your motherboard might not recognize all 320 GB of the drive if it doesn't support LBA (Logical Block Addressing), but I'd think it would still see the drive but report the size as something smaller -- typically around 127 GB I think.

You do have a power cable plugged into the drive as well as the data cable, right? And after you set the BIOS to "Auto/auto detect" for this drive, do you press the <Enter> key? Usually the BIOS won't actually try to detect the drive and the proper settings for it unless you also press <Enter> after selecting "Auto". Then, if it does detect the drive, make sure you save the changes as you exit the BIOS.

I suppose you have hooked the power cable up and knew to press <Enter> after setting the correct ATA/IDE controller to "Auto" but want to be sure we haven't overlooked any of the basics.

Given that this is a Dell motherboard we may be stumbling over some sort of proprietary issue -- that is, there may be some special non-standard hardware requirement for the hard drive, for example.

 

I think I got the motherboard mixed up with the one in the HP I am working on..this one is the DELL and is the same one I had at the beginning..but searching for info on both I think I got crossed eyed...I am supposed to be sleeping now and heading that way..but yes when I set the hard drive on Auto I hit enter then save the settings...it recognizes the memory and everything esle the system has...but not the hard drive...so I will dig in the morning when I feel human again... thanks all for everything...given me things to check out...I ain't blonde...I is white haired...must be lack of color that fogs my thinking!!!...

 

:wave got this solved... had to plug the harddrive and one of the CD drives into the same cable instead of letting them have their own...then it recognizes and was able to set up the windows OS... now to get it to recognize the second CD drive that is on its own cable...do not have another slot for a 4th device unless I just put in a smaller hard drive maybe to use as a sort of back up disk...