Start a Conversation

Unsolved

This post is more than 5 years old

2831

October 23rd, 2006 19:00

Need Maxtor help

I'll preface this message by saying I'm not a newb by any means - I've been building PC's for years, and have worked for 15+ years in Technical Support for a Fortune 100 company that makes both Windows software and hardware.

That being said....I purchased a Dell Dimension E510 several months ago (got too busy at work to build my own from parts/pieces) and it's been working great; I'm very happy with it. It came with a 160gb Seagate S-ATA drive, and I've nearly filled that up. Went out Saturday and picked up a 500gb Maxtor 7H500F0 drive, which I tried to install last night. Connected the 2 cables, tweaked my BIOS so S-ATA 2 was set to AUTO and rebooted the PC. My new drive was seen by the BIOS just fine upon boot up, but I'm getting no joy in XP whatsoever (i.e. the new drive is not detected at any point and never shows up in either my Control Panel -> System -> Device Manager list or Explorer).

I spent several hours Googling this topic and searching these Dell forums hoping to stumble onto an "A HA!", but no luck in either. I saw the warnings about Maxtor drive failures, and I will consider taking it back and getting a Seagate instead, but I still remain concerned that any other HD I put in will not be detected by Windows. Am I missing something painfully obvious?

Oh...before I forget...Maxtor drives come with a configuration utility (MaxBlast) that supposedly fixed an XP issue with drives that are larger than 130gb, but even after that hiccough was addressed, I still don't see the drive at all.

Any ideas? Is there a Dell / Dimension E510 driver somewhere I need to download? I did see drivers for several Maxtor drives in the Download section, but none were for drives larger than 250gb and my model wasn't listed.

Thanks for your time!

John

4 Posts

October 23rd, 2006 20:00

John,
 
I just had to install a secondary HD in my Dimension 8400 and went into Setup at boot (F2 key), then selected Drives and enabled it for BIOS to utilize it.

Message Edited by cussatit on 10-23-2006 05:16 PM

7 Posts

October 23rd, 2006 22:00

Rick,
 
Thanks for the info, although....  when I booted XP, shouldn't the OS have, at the very least, detected the new drive?  Until that part happens, it won't even show in Disk Management.

11.9K Posts

October 23rd, 2006 22:00



JohnMicek wrote:
I'll preface this message by saying I'm not a newb by any means - I've been building PC's for years, and have worked for 15+ years in Technical Support for a Fortune 100 company that makes both Windows software and hardware.

That being said....I purchased a Dell Dimension E510 several months ago (got too busy at work to build my own from parts/pieces) and it's been working great; I'm very happy with it. It came with a 160gb Seagate S-ATA drive, and I've nearly filled that up. Went out Saturday and picked up a 500gb Maxtor 7H500F0 drive, which I tried to install last night. Connected the 2 cables, tweaked my BIOS so S-ATA 2 was set to AUTO and rebooted the PC. My new drive was seen by the BIOS just fine upon boot up, but I'm getting no joy in XP whatsoever (i.e. the new drive is not detected at any point and never shows up in either my Control Panel -> System -> Device Manager list or Explorer).
 
Wouldn't be in Explorer until you partition and format it in Disk Management.

I spent several hours Googling this topic and searching these Dell forums hoping to stumble onto an "A HA!", but no luck in either. I saw the warnings about Maxtor drive failures, and I will consider taking it back and getting a Seagate instead, but I still remain concerned that any other HD I put in will not be detected by Windows. Am I missing something painfully obvious?

Oh...before I forget...Maxtor drives come with a configuration utility (MaxBlast) that supposedly fixed an XP issue with drives that are larger than 130gb, but even after that hiccough was addressed, I still don't see the drive at all.  Not needed.

Any ideas? Is there a Dell / Dimension E510 driver somewhere I need to download? I did see drivers for several Maxtor drives in the Download section, but none were for drives larger than 250gb and my model wasn't listed.  Call Maxtor if the above doesn't work.
Thanks for your time!

John

Message Edited by rickmktg on 10-23-2006 07:14 PM

11.9K Posts

October 23rd, 2006 23:00



JohnMicek wrote:
Rick,
 
Thanks for the info, although....  when I booted XP, shouldn't the OS have, at the very least, detected the new drive?  Until that part happens, it won't even show in Disk Management.
 
The drive is seen by bios.  Then, when you boot XP, you go into Disk Management.  If you don't see it there, then you need to contact Maxtor.

7 Posts

October 24th, 2006 02:00

Okay...an update.....

I booted from the Maxtor "MaxBlast" software CD and used that program to both format and partition the drive as five separate 100gb drives. Next, I booted XP, went into Disk Management and still it's not detected. Ran through XP's "Help" screen steps in Disk Management (open Device Manager, Action, Scan for hardware changes) and still a stinking handful of NADA. BIOS finds it and so does Maxtor's software (actually, 2 separate programs) running in DOS mode. But get into XP, and forget it.

It can't be the drive, or neither the BIOS nor the DOS utility would have found it. Any other ideas?

Thanks again for your time and patience,

John

4 Posts

October 24th, 2006 12:00

All's I know is that when I went into System Setup at boot up (press F2 key or whatever your's may be), followed down to Drives and expanded them, the SATA 0, which is my C: Drive was "enabled to be used by BIOS", SATA 1 through 3 were not. The SATA 1, which is the secondary drive being used for storage that was installed was enabled by selecting "On", then reboot continued with Windows opening and the New Hardware Wizard recognising the Drive. The Drive shows up and works, etc.
 
It could be something else, but I'm only telling you what I ended up doing and all works completely fine. It's like a switch for those SATA Drives from the MB to be activated first. It's not going to be the BIOS if it doesn't even exist to the BIOS by not being enabled.  
No Events found!

Top