help !!!!!!! Dimension 2400 hard disk error when upgrading

Question

I know you cant add a secondary hdd to these low end systems, due to not being anywhere to place the drives.   I have however purchased a Western Digital hdd @250GB 7200rpm 8mb cache. (internal eide) with an ide-ata interface.   When attempting to replace this hdd with my original 80gb hdd i can only get to the very start up (big dell screen) and then it tells me it cant find the drive. error seeking dive 0 or something. - i do have the latest AO5 flash, with win xp sp1. (xp sp2 is on the current drive) I entered the bios setup & the bios has recognized it, along with its size. I then carried out the ide diagnostics test (by hitting F12 folllowed by test ide drives etc, and it found the drive and stated, it passed the test)   I have reverted back to my original untill i can find the reasons for this.   I am going to ask Western digital tomorow if they can help at all. (i know dell wont want to know due to not buying the hard drive from them..   Any help would be greatly appreciated.

paynemike · Answer

Yes i had the jumper firmly placed in the cs.   Thanks for the reply.

ejn63 · Answer

Do you have it jumpered properly (as cable select)?

paynemike · Answer

im wondering if its a mother board problem, but why does my original hdd boot up ok. ????

ejn63 · Answer

DId you reinstall the OS or clone the hard drive?

paynemike · Answer

I cant get that far. I have installed the hard drive (to replace the current one) & the p.c doesn't even boot up.

Keep saying error seeking drive 1.

Or press f1 to re-try or f2 for set-up.

This is quite strange if you ask me. (im not a newby to p.c.'s)

Thanks for the replies guys.

Mike.

Majestic · Answer

Also try clearing the NVRAM (CMOS). It is not uncommon for the hardware information stored in the NVRAM (CMOS) to not be updated correctly after a hardware change and this can lead to the F1 - F2 boot scenario. To clear the NVRAM (CMOS) on your model just follow these steps....

Reboot system and enter the BIOS Setup by pressing F2.
Turn on Caps Lock, Scroll Lock and Num Lock.
Press ALT+ E then ALT+ F then ALT+ B

simpswr · Answer

Have you set BIOS to boot first from CD and started with the XP reinstallation disc in the drive? . . You should see a prompt "Press any key to boot from CD" . . do that and you can partition the new drive and proceed to installing XP

wrs

paynemike · Answer

Message Edited by paynemike on 02-18-2005 12:13 PM

paynemike · Answer

Message Edited by paynemike on 02-18-2005 12:13 PM

paynemike · Answer

Thanks for the reply..

Sadly i tried resetting the cmos, using the alt and "E" etc, but this still did not work

All it did is restart the computer, then it said performing automatic ide configuration

Which then came up : Primary Master : Disk drive

Secondary Master : cd-rom drive

Secondry Slave : cd-rom drive.

Followed by strike F1 to re-try boot or F2 for setup utility.

I then got onto Dell, who advised me to perhaps try and swap the ide 1 with ide 2 on the main board.

I tried this, along with a load of other trial and errors & they finally came up with the idea to send an engineer out to replace the hard drive, as they rekon the hard drive might be faulty.

I then stated, that it was the hdd that i brought which i was having trouble with and not the original hdd, so you can imagine they weren't impressed after 30mins of diagnosis just to find that the original dell part works fine. (downer ay)

I cant understand this, the bios detects the new Western Digital 250gb hdd fine, along with its size & yet it wont go to the next stage of actually booting with the device.

Any more help is greatly appreciated.

Regards Mike.

the crofter · Answer

I'm having a similar problem. The system recognises the new HD as a slave but will not boot up with it as a Master. I have noticed there is a small FAT partition on the old drive called EISA Configuration. I suspect this is required so the system will recognise the new drive as bootable. Any other thoughts?

paynemike · Answer

hi there, i finally got it working. yey!!!!!!!!!!!!! - believe it or not, i had forgot i changed my default optical master drive (cd/r) with my dvd/r drive, so thus my dvd/r was the master & my cd/r (which came with p.c) is the slave.

when i was trying to boot up this new hard disk, i had the setup disk (for the western digital hdd) in the cd/r and not in the master dvd /r. As soon as i placed the setup disk which came with the hdd, in the master drive it booted up no probs and went on to set up the hard disk for use with the p.c.

The only thing is now i have only got 127GB available out of 250 gb. i believe this is to do with win xp, being set up on the partioned part of the drive & the unpartioned part of the drive is just sitting there doing nothing.

I understand that win xp can actually recognize upto terrabite sizes.

I can't believe something as simple as this baffled me so much.

the crofter · Answer

Isn't it always the simple things!

paynemike · Answer

I have now installed my new Wester Digital hard disk drive & managed to use 230 gb of the hard drive.   I ran the windows hot fix, for the  atapi.sys file version update. (which allows you to let windows see larger drives than 127gb)   I then ran partition magic to transfer the remaining of the space. but the only disappointment is theres about 18gb that i cant utilize due to it being unallocated.   not to worry ay.

Storage, Drives & Media

help !!!!!!! Dimension 2400 hard disk error when upgrading

Was this post helpful?