Hard drive replacement '0200 Disk error'

Question

I got my hands on a free used Dell Inspiron 2500 with the following specs:   Celeron 750MHz 64MB RAM IBM Travelstar 5GB HDD Dead battery Dial-up modem mini-PCI   And found/bought a few bits to upgrade it to this:   Pentium 3 1GHz 512MB RAM New battery LAN 10/100 mini-PCI WiFi PCMCIA card   The problem is I also upgraded it with an 80GB Seagate HDD, but I cannot get the notebook to recognise the hard drive. The first time I installed it, I presumed the drive was faulty and so returned it to Seagate for a replacement since it was still under warranty. I received the new drive today and I still have the same problems.   If I boot up with the new drive inserted I get this error message:   '0200: Failure Fixed Disk 0' 'Press to resume, to Setup'   If I enter press and enter the BIOS (latest version A15), the drive is recognised on the first page, but if I press the -> button and move to the next tab, the BIOS crashes and becomes unresponsive.   No OS disks will boot, not Windows 2000, not XP, and not even Ubuntu 7.10. The Dell Diagnostics disk does not even list a HDD as being present....   I was impressed with how easily the Dell notebook came apart and how easy it is to upgrade components, I've been googling this error and have found a few people with the same problem.   Long story short: Can I not use any HDD brand with this notebook? Do I have to specifically get an IBM Travelstart since that is the brand the laptop came with? Any ideas on how I can use my Seagate 80GB drive?

silversome · Answer

Someone, please help - I'm having a very similar problem with my Inspiron 2500.  My original 10GB HDD works fine with XP SP2 but I am trying to upgrade to WD 120GB.  This is the second drive I have tried (RMA'd the first one because I thought it was a bad drive).  Cannot run diagnostics other than disabled quiet boot, and get the above message.  HDD is seen in bios.  Unable to run XP CD.  Is there a size problem with this model Dell?  I'm not sure how to get the latest bios update, unless I'm supposed to do it when I have the old drive installed.  On the first WD120GB, I hooked the drive to a Vista PC and tried to format it, but was unable to do so.  I haven't tried that on the second drive.  Is it possible I have gotten two bad drives in a row?  I have swapped the pin adapter, the new drive is IDE, I'm using Genuine Windows Advantage XP (just purchased to upgrade from ME), and I've reinstalled many OS's.  I'm really stumped on this one though.  Any help is greatly appreciated.

zenetko · Answer

I am having the same problem. I also have a Dell Inspiron 2500 and my 20 GB HDD was clicking and hanging intermittently. I bought a new Western Digital Scorpio 80 GB, EIDE, 5400 rpm HDD. The BIOS recognises and lists the new HDD but then gives the Error 0200. I also tried BIOS A12 and A15, still same problem :mansad:

Any one found a solution to this problem ?

Fat Jonny · Answer

I figured I'd come back with the soution. This laptop/BIOS has a maximum 60GB hard drive capacity and will not recognise anything larger. It may appear in the BIOS but you won't be able to boot to it or install Windows on it. There is no solution apart from getting a 60GB hard drive, or getting a new laptop.

silversome · Answer

Thank you, I had tried everything and was still scratching my head. Several others intimated there was

a maximum drive size per the bios, but I thought if I used the latest bios update, it should work. Thanks again, I put the 160GB into an enclosure and am using it for desktop backup.

zenetko · Answer

Thankyou for the update. I will try to get a replacement if I am lucky.

Storage, Drives & Media

Hard drive replacement "0200 Disk error"

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