Unsolved
This post is more than 5 years old
5 Posts
0
44110
Trouble Installing Secondary Hard Drive Dell Dimension 2400
Hello everyone, I'm sort of a newbie in computer software/hardware upgrading....and having some problems, my computer does not recognize the new/secondary hard drive I'm trying to install...so here it goes.
---Computer Specs: Dell Dimension 2400 , OS : Windows XP
Old hard drive: Seagate Barracude 40 GB ATA/100 (I want to keep this one as my master drive because my OS is on it, I want too boot from it as well)
New Hard drive: Western Digital 80GB (I'm not sure if it's an ATA or what, Dell didn't send any directions whatsoever with it)
Heres the problem: I bought a mounting bracket to install a second hard drive on my dimension 2400, attached it, hooked up the Ribbon cables as directed, and used the Cable Select settings on both drives....unfortunately, upon starting the computer with the second drive installed, it has error message "Primary Drive 0 Not Found." I tried to reboot again just to see the same error message. It's not detecting my primary (master) drive...but it's all hooked correctly, I've double-triple-many times checked the ribbon cables to see if they're set properly...and they're all secure.
Now of course when I go back and just use the old ribbon cable to hook my master/older hard drive to the computer without the secondary drive hooked up , windows boots right up and detects it.
I'm not very familiar with BIOS...so I'd rather leave it well enough alone...although I've fiddled with the hard drive detection settings in it to "auto" but it still doesn't recognize the new secondary hard drive.
Some help would be greatly appreciated! (Remember to be clear in direction, I'm a stupid newbie.)
:) --jeepgirl4x4
jeepgirl4x4
5 Posts
0
April 13th, 2006 04:00
shesagordie
10 Elder
10 Elder
•
46K Posts
0
April 13th, 2006 04:00
After installation, check the setup, that the second drive is enabled [Auto] and In order for windows to recognize the second hard drive, it must be partitioned and formatted. These are generic instructions for installing an additional hard drive using Windows XP Disk Management, they are by Seagate, but apply to all brands.
http://www.seagate.com/support/kb/disc/howto/install_xp_disk_mgmt.html
Bev.
jeepgirl4x4
5 Posts
0
April 13th, 2006 06:00
Message Edited by jeepgirl4x4 on 04-13-200602:28 AM
shesagordie
10 Elder
10 Elder
•
46K Posts
0
April 13th, 2006 20:00
jeepgirl4x4
5 Posts
0
April 13th, 2006 21:00
shesagordie
10 Elder
10 Elder
•
46K Posts
0
April 13th, 2006 23:00
jeepgirl4x4
5 Posts
0
April 14th, 2006 02:00
Howard_Woodard
63 Posts
0
July 31st, 2006 03:00
Where did you buy a mount that allows you to add a second hard drive? I was gonna add one to my daughter's 2400 this afternoon and found that there is only a single drive mount. I'd like to either get an add-on or a two-drive mount, whichever is available.
Thanks in advance,
Howard
Kurt459
14 Posts
0
May 7th, 2009 20:00
This post is rather dated, but the brackets are still available for some older Dimension models:
http://www.iresolved.com/index.htm
Kurt
deltaecho5
1 Message
0
February 27th, 2010 13:00
I realize this original post is outdated, but I found it on goole and if someone else tracks back here, I wanted to give them an update on what I found.
You can add another drive to the ATA controller used by the Optical drive loop-
Dell 2400 comes with one HD drive bay, and two 5.25" optical/HD bays. My system had a DVD R/W, A CD R/W and the original 40GB EIDE/PATA drive mounted in the lower front vertically behind the front badge panel.
I had an old P/ATA IDE Barracuda 7200 250GB laying around, and decided to create a Media Center as a test to run with XBOX360 Zune software. We have 5 xbox's in the house and can now watch movies, listen to audio, and look at pictures with the Zune D/L from Xbox using a PC as a Zune media center. It wasn't long before I decided we needed something stand alone rather than utilizing one of the networked PC's actively used.
The 2400 seemed perfect for the job, so I stripped down the existing HD to bare files necessary, and began to add the 250GB (a precursor to adding an additional SATA dual 1 TB drive cluster...to do this you will need an additional SATA controller card (newer disk technology), SATA cables and a way to mount the drives in the case...see other post on brackets...they still sell a one bay add on for $19.99 as of 2/27/10).
In response to the jeepgirl4x4 post about getting Drive 0 not found. I had the same issue. I originally connected the second drive with an new two drive cable and replaced the OEM single drive cable, and booted to the "Drive 0 not found" message. Seems Dell ships the system with a one HD cable for the hard drive, as opposed to one with two connectors. The issue is if you look closely, you will see it's an ULTRA IDE cable, not a standard 20 pin cable.
I put the OEM cable back, and it booted fine again. I then replaced the 2nd CD R/W with the second new 250GB drive (master/slave pin set to slave), and the system booted, and windows located the drive immediately and it ran chk dsk automatically. I had read somewhere that you could not pair a hard drive with the optical drive cable, but this is not the case, as my system has recognized the drive as drive "E:".
Things I am not sure of as of this writing:
-If a two drive ultra ide ribbon cable will work with the single onboard IDE controller slot to utilize two drives on the same cable (did Dell ship a single connector ultra IDE cable to save money since there is no bay for a second drive anyway?)
-I have not installed a dual connector SATA controller card and 2 x 1TB drives - I am ready to purchase only $85 each and $12 for the controller!) since I am testing the current configuration with several different platforms such as Zune, WMP11, TVersity and also making sure the system performs well as a stand alone media center parked next to my router in the utility closet.
If there are others out there with an old 2400, think about this configuration before you take it to the dump...it's a pretty quick system to use as a raid storage or media center, and if you own xbox's, you can use your televisions/receivers as audio/video players from a central source. Zune software is free to D/L on the xbox360 website. Check to make sure you are running XP SP3 first.