Bios problems after installing new hard drive.

Question

I just installed a new hard drive. I have an Inspiron 8000 with BIOS version A04. When I go into the BIOS, it only reports information until it gets to the hard drive line. (It shows information up to Audio Controller, then starting from "Primary Hard Drive", the information is blank.) The keyboard commands also do not work (I press, say, escape, and nothing happens, which suggests to me that it is looking for the hard drive and freezing the system.

I know that the hard drive basically works because I successfully formatted it and used it briefly as an external drive. But when I put it inside the computer, nada.

Carolyn

bacillus · Answer

When you installed the hard drive did you make sure to transfer the bladelike adapter which was on the old hard drive's IDE pins onto the new hard drive?

flesner · Answer

Yup, most definately included the adaptor.

gunners666 · Answer

I am not answering to the question here, but I also was trying to install a new 80GB Toshiba harddrive, bought from newegg in my 600m and I got the errror 'setup could not find any hard drive' while installing xp on it.. I did NOT do anything with the adapter, neither I know what and where is it. Could that be the reason why it's not finding the hard drive ? My bios version is A09 and I really don't know a thing about updating bios and pressing F2 gets me to the setup screen. but nothing to anything that seems to have information about hard drive setup etc., So. can you guys tell me what this adapter is ? Thanks..

bacillus · Answer

@gunners666 wrote: can you guys tell me what this adapter is ? Thanks.. the adapter is the thing just below the hdd in the pic above. it fits onto the pins of the hdd.

gunners666 · Answer

But how do I get the adapter out ? When I pull the hard drive it comes out smoothly with the plastic cover (there the headphone jack fits) of the laptop on the outside, and then I unscrew*d the old hard drive from the carrier and screw*d the new hard drive into the carrier and inserted the carrier into the slot where I took it out from.. How can I take out the adapter ? .. I am quite sure that the adapter did not come out with the hard drive when I took the old one out..because the old hard drive and new hard drive looked exact the same except for the carrier..   Sorry.. I know nothing about computers.. pls help !

Ed C · Answer

The adapter is ON the OLD drive. You have to remove it from the OLD drive and install it on the NEW one. I doubt the adapter would stay IN the notebook unless you did NOT push it all the way on in the first place.

leduke30 · Answer

Some of the early BIOS versions were flawed and would not recognize Drives that were properly configured, I had two boards-DP/N 088DRE- with A08 BIOS version that would boot to BIOS setup fine, but would not recognize any drive-even a floppy- as they were when received. It was impossible to update their BIOS by normal means as no drive was recognized. I even popped out the socketed BIOS chips and plugged them into another good board. Same thing.
So I reinstalled the good BIOS chip I had taken out of that board, but only pushed it in far enough to get the board to boot up to a Floppy with a BIOS update to A23 diskette and to the screen which prompts you to enter Y to flash the BIOS to A23, popped out the good chip with 2 heavy toothpicks, pressed the one of the corrupt chips into place and then entered Y. A normal flash to A23 resulted; I then did a repeat with the other chip with the same result. I then reinstalled the chips into the boards they came in and all was normal with all drives recognized.

I would recommend if you can get the boards to boot to a Floppy Drive only with a BIOS Flash Update Diskette, update your very old BIOS versions and then try the drives again. You do not need any other drives installed when you do the flash, as you are flashing the BIOS on the board in DOS and the harddrive and OS are irrelevant. If you can't get your floppy to work either as I did, and your BIOS chip is socketed, pop it out and mail it to me. No charge except for postage.

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Bios problems after installing new hard drive.

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