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Renevant

3 Posts

11274

June 2nd, 2004 03:00

Dimension 8200/XP/Maxtor HDD: Primary Drive 1 Not Found (Another Case, With a Twist)

I recently decided to add another HDD to my Dimension 8200. I've had success with Maxtor in the past, so Picked up an 80gb hdd and went about installing it. Unfortunately, no matter what i seem to do, I can not get a slave drive recognized. I know this problem has been seen often here: I spent the better part of today reading every other entry relating to this problem by other users, and trying all the suggested solutions.

Here's what I can tell you:

1. I'm running vA09 of BIOS. Upgraded it today from A07. 
2. I am running XP Home with SP1
3. Both drives are set to Cable Select on one new IDE cable. New drive is in Slave position, existing in Master, plugged into mobo
4. In BIOS, both Primary (0) and Primary (1) are set to Auto
5. I have used Maxtor's MaxBlast 3 to verify the new drive is good
6. When hooked up in the Slave position, neither drive is found [That is to say, putting the new drive as Master and existing as Slave winds up yielding a Primary (0)/Primary (1) not found]
7. I had GoBack installed, but uninstalled it
8. I have tried multiple jumper configurations for the two drives, including different Master/Slave jumper settings. It seems agreed upon that they should be left on CS, which is where they are now.
9. I have swapped IDE cables. It is the correct type.
10. The HDD spins up normally
11. BIOS lists the new HDD as 'Unknown" in slave position. It registers as a HDD in Master position.
12. BIOS lists the old HDD as 'Unknown" in slave position. It registers as a HDD in Master position.
13. Currently, the two drives are in CS jumper settings, with new drive set in slave position, old in master position. This yields the Primary Drive (1) Not Found Error.
14. I have attempted to use Disk Management through XP's Admin tools, but the new drive does not show up.

I've tried to do my homework, but have run out of solutions. I have no idea why I can't seem to get ANY drive working on the Primary (1) position, even a known good drive. Either HDD registers in Primary (0), but neither at Primary (1). 

 

System Specs as follows:

Dell Dimension 8200
Windows XP Home - SP1
P4 - 2.0 GHz
768 MB RAM
NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200
NEC NR-7900A CD-R/RW
LITEON DVD-ROM
Dell 1900FP LCD
Dell P991 19" CRT

Could any of you fine folks please advise on possible solutions? Would it be worth my while to attempt installation of an OS on the new HDD, in hopes that if it found a OS on both HDDs it might recognize them? I know, a long shot, and probably futile, but at this point, I'm desperate. My thanks in advance for your help

Brett

dan39

1.2K Posts

June 2nd, 2004 04:00

what other cable did you use? the problem with your situation is it sounds that youve attempted many things and have done the correct process. its very hard to tell what the problem could be. one thing you may try is switching the power connection. maybe the one you have used to plug into the slave drive is bad and so when you switch drives and use the same connection it doesnt power up. you mentioned it spins up normally, when installed as master or slave? or both?

Renevant

3 Posts

June 2nd, 2004 10:00

In regards to switching the cables: I first tried hooking up the new drive to the existing IDE cable. When it failed, I reasoned that perhaps the cable was bad, so I substituted another one that came with the hard drive.

In regards to the power connects: I've also tried switching between three possible power connects. Again, no luck :(

At this point, though, I'm willing to try every hypothesis twice - even three times if necessary - so tonight, I'll swap the IDE cable back to the original one and switch power connects. You never know :)

Thanks for the suggestion. Any others you can think of?

Brett

Renevant

3 Posts

June 7th, 2004 01:00

Five days later, still no luck. So I'm bumping this back up....

NCJames

9 Posts

June 10th, 2004 02:00

I would go back to square 1..

First just connect your original drive up (cable select in primary position) and when the computer boots, hit CTRL+D to get to your IDE test or you can hit F12 to get into the boot menu and there should be an IDE or hard drive diagnostic.  If your primary comes up and is good, then reverse it and put the new one in its place and do the same thing.  If all works out, then put your original back in place and connect the second drive as the slave on the connector.  If all does not work, then try and go to the manufacturer of the hard drive (for example www.maxtor.com) and ensure that you are putting the jumpers in the correct positions for the actual model of drive that you have.  They might also have some knwo issues that you can get from their support information.  Let me know how it goes and good luck..

dan39

1.2K Posts

June 10th, 2004 04:00

funny thing, i ran into this problem a few days ago. try disconnecting the slave cd-rom drive. (yes i realize this makes almost no sense) then try and see if the bios auto detects the slave drive hard drive, then run the maxblaster with your main cd-rom drive. isn't logical but worth a shot as youve done everything else right.

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