Error auto sensing primary hard drive

Question

I have a Dimensions 3000 and my hard drive went down.  It was a Maxtor and I am attempting to install a Western Digital Caviar SE 160 hard drive.  I keep getting this message and I have tried everything you can possibly think of other than removing the battery or updateing the BIOS.  Though I did unplug the computer from the electrical outlet with no luck.  However, I did try to install an older Maxtor hard drive with Windows 98 from an older computer and the Dimension did read the hard drive and it booted up.  For what ever reason it will not read this new hard drive.  Any suggestions before I start to play around with the BIOS.  Thanks

PETER345 · Answer

How did you set the jumpers?  Normally on Dells, each is jumpered for CS.   Did you put the drive in by itself or did you keep the old HD in?   Peter

marclac · Answer

Hi,  The old hard drive is completely out with one of the connector pins haven been broken off. ( it helps to put the connector on the right way ) This is a brand new hard drive and it's by itself as the master on the primary.  As for the jumpers ?  I tried booting with the jumper on every pin ( one at a time ) including once without the jumper and still no luck.  I've tried changing the ribbon cable, placing the hard drive as the secondary with the CD/DVD as the primary,  and even tried to put the hard drive as the slave to the CD/DVD and all didn't work.

marclac · Answer

Yes I can and I'll be trying that tonight.

PETER345 · Answer

Maybe the new HD has a problem.  Can you try it on another machine?   Peter

marclac · Answer

After clearing the NVRAM, removing the battery and updateing the BIOS I still didn't have any luck.  So I tried the hard drive in an older computer and got the same results.  I have determined that this hard drive if not defective does have problems so I have returned it.  Adding a different drive worked fine.  Thanks for the help.

Storage, Drives & Media

Error auto sensing primary hard drive

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