Inspiron e1505 Not recognizing hard drive. Need Help!!

Thank you, Raz,  for the input. I did re-attach the hard drive in question to the other laptop as you stated. I checked the BIOS, and it did not appear under any part of the system. I am assuming that is what you were referring to in your reply (strike "F12) upon boot-up, and look under BIOS).?? Once I logged in, however, it did show up under "my computer" as before.

Is it possible that there is something wrong with the hard drive that is not allowing it to communicate for start-up, but would allow it to be seen later (after log-in)? This is quite puzzling. I would think if the hard drive was "dead", it would not communicate at all - but I could be entirely off base there. I have tried it with both the existing motherboard and another working / tested one - both with the exact same results. It seems very odd.

Would you recommend trying another hard drive / or having the motherboard tested? The cost for both is about the same. I do have re-install discs in hand.

Thank you again.

Hi, when i said press F12 you should have got a number of options. boot from HDD. boot from CD/DVD, boot from usb device. if that didn't work then in the bios its self there should be a boot option with similar settings. the one thing that concerns me is that. You say that the drive does not show up in the bios, (which it wont if its attached to a usb), the fact that it shows up in my computer indicates that there is life in it. 

You could try if you have saved the data to reformat it so that it is a clean NTFS drive then reinstall into the laptop, check in the bios to see if it is seen if it is reinstall the OS, and go from there.

Raz

Thanks again, Raz.

I may have misunderstood your previous directions - you'll have to pardon my inexperience in computer issues such as this. The computer I was testing it on is running Windows 7, and the hard drive in question has Windows XP Home Edition on it - would that create a problem if I tried to "boot from USB"? It is my wife's brand new laptop and she'd kill me if I messed it up.

I talked to a local computer repair shop and ran everything by them. They recommended just replacing the hard drive. I was planning to do so anyway in the future (since it's only a 60 gig), as I am was planning to increase the RAM as well (before it quit working). Being that I got the same results with two different motherboards - it would seem quite unlikely that both motherboards would have the exact same problem - especially since the one was just tested OK. Since I still have access to all the data (documents, pics, etc.) on that old hard drive through the USB adapter, I wonder if I should just try a new hard drive and install the OS on that?? Then I can have access to the old data whenever I want, on any of our PCs?? I do have the recovery discs from Dell, I assume that should have everything I need to do so?

Any other advice or recommendations? Thanks again!

Hi, as it seems that the motherboards seem to be OK then yes replace the drive. however i would recommend that you copy all your essential data from the old drive as it seems to have a problem, and the last thing you want is to loose valuable data/files ETC..

You could then do as i suggested before wipe the drive clean by reformatting it then use it as a emergency storage device.

Raz

I think I may just do that. I can't think of anything else to try. I really don't have an awful lot of files stored on that HDD, just a few docs, pics, music, etc. It's nice to have the SATA / IDE to USB adapter in this case.

Thank you again for all your help and advice, Raz. I greatly appreciate it!

God Bless!

FYI: It was the hard drive!. I picked up a new 250 gig HDD and put it in. BIOS recognized it correctly right away. Just working on reinstalling software now!

Thanks again for all your help!