Strange Hard Drive Problem

Does the bios detect the 40 GB drive?  Some of the older laptops didn't like to see hard drives larger than 8 to 12 GB without a bios update.  Usually the symptom would be that the machine would lock up if a drive larger than the 12 GB limit was installed.  If you didn't have a lock-up, however, and your OS installation disk was capable of using a larger drive, it would still be possible to format and use the drive.

If setup does show the 40 GB drive, I am as puzzled as you.  Perhaps the 20 GB drive doesn't report its size to the computer in a format that the setup program can understand.

Hi there

Thanks for your reply .

Yes it does show the 40GB , thats what it is useing , I wanted to swap it with the 20GB I have on my c600 , then I was going to give my nephew the cpx with 20GB and put the 40GB in my c600 , both 20and 40 work ok in my c600 and my daughters inspiron .

Do you think runing the dell diagnostics would show up anything , ( I would have to make a bootable cd for this ) , or updating the bios !! .

I am totaly stumped with this .

cheers

spike44

Hello spike44, When you say the cpx will not recognize the 20 GB in the BIOS, did you try to set it manually? Sometimes you may have to tell it to find new hard drives. I have a cpx and I have installed a 20, 30, and 40GB drives at one time or another and had no issues at all.

Hi Spike. What is the make and model of the 20 Gb hard drive? Is there a jumper on it?

Hi there williamKidd

The make is a IBM Travelstar , not sure what you mean jumpers , I do on a Desktop , it has jumper on the top sticker ie device 0 device 1 cable sel , but I cant see any jumper points ! .

cheers

spike44

Hi there

thanks for your reply , but how do you set it manually ! .

cheers

spike44

Running the diagnostics would certainly verify that the drive is connected to the motherboard.  My next question is whether or not you swapped the pin adapter on the drive; I would think that both computers you are talking about would use the same one, but if the drive shows ok on one and not the other computer, I wonder about the connection.

Hi there

There was no pins on it , So I dont know what the problem is , I have decided to give my nephew the 40gig , I will use the 20gig , Thanks guy's for all your help . this cpx obviously  dose not like this 20gig drive .

cheers

spike44

Spike, it sounds like you are using a SATA drive from your description if there are no pins. However, I just checked my SATA hard drive and it does have four pins to the right of the two cables. I couldn't find your particular drive on the Travelstar site due to a lack of a model number but even then the lowest storage that they show on there is for a 40 GB drive.

My next question is whether or not you swapped the pin adapter on the drive

Jack, are the four pins that I see on my drive the same thing that you are talking about when you mention the pin adapter?

Sorry about the delay in responding but my notifications are no longer notifying for some reason (they were working at one point yesterday).

williamkidd;

The OP is actually using PATA drives.  The C600 and CPx predate SATA drives by a good three years.  Dell laptops that use PATA generally have a "blade" adapter on the drive pins to make installation into the computer easier.  A laptop PATA drive uses a 40 pin layout with one blank to ensure that the connector will fit only one way.  The blade adapter fits over these pins and changes the interface to a board edge connector similar to the PCI card connectors you see in a desktop.

I'm pretty certain the C600 uses an adapter, and I believe the CPx series also used one.  If the drive is installed without the adapter, the pins won't match up to the connector on the main board so the drive will not be physically connected to the computer.

JackShack, thank you for taking the time to answer my question about the laptop hard drives. Without knowing the model number of Spike's hard drive I used this PC World page to find this Quick Installation Guide for the Hitachi/IBM Travelstar 80GN drive. What I'm understanding you to say is that Dell added an adapter with holes on one side to fit over the pin's on the drive and a blade (or a blade receptacle) on the other side that connects to the cable coming from the motherboard. Does that entail using a non-standard IDE cable with a blade receptacle (or blade) on one end and a standard IDE connection on the other end? Also, is it possible to remove the adapter from the drive and use a standard IDE cable that doesn't use the blade connection?

What is strange to me about this situation is that both the C600 and the CPx are Latitudes so it would seem that just plugging the 20 GB drive into the system that was already running the 40 GB drive would be a snap (pardon the pun). Another thing that was strange to me is that you said that the laptop PATA drive uses a 40-pin layout with one blank so unless the picture on that Quick Installation Guide that I mentioned above is wrong it differs because I counted 43 pins and one blank (not including the 4 jumper pins). I'm guessing that the picture is probably wrong but that couldn't be a problem, could it?

You're quite welcome, and no, your eyes still work well.  The 40 should have been 44 as it is a standard ATA interface with pin 20 blank for the key pin.  The error was my typo.

Unfortunately you can't just take a laptop drive and plug it into a desktop IDE cable without an adapter.  The size is wrong; the laptop 2.5" drive is not large enough to fit the desktop IDE cable.  When installed into a laptop, the IDE drives often have an adapter of some sort.  The one I'm most familiar with is the "blade" adapter as I have worked mostly with Inspiron and Latitude laptops.  Both of these Dell types, at least those with the IDE interface, use the blade since it makes it easy to fit the main board with a card edge socket that allows the drive to just slip into place.  If they used the native connector of the IDE drive they would have a registration problem since the pin sockets in the computer would be a small target to hit, and a friction problem.  If you ever need to take a blade adapter off a drive you will understand what I'm talking about.  It is a challenge to get the adapter off the drive without bending several pins.  Installation is easier, but you still need to be careful.

HP uses an adapter also, but it's different.  The one model I looked at mounted the drive on the door that covers the hard drive cavity.  An adapter slides onto the pins, but it is a type that allows the pins to make contact as you swing the door closed and secure it.

Your question is similar to mine; I am pretty sure both laptops in the OP's question use the same arrangement for the drive, so I really don't understand why the problem unless there is a difference in the adapters.

Appreciate very much that you gave us this feedback.  I thought I was going crazy.

Good luck to you!

Yes, thank you for posting the update, Spike. That was an unusual one but at least there was a solution.

I want to take a moment to thank JackShack again. It's because of posters like Jack and others like him that I keep coming back to the Dell forums despite the changes that have been made. I have a pretty decent knowledge of computers but there are always things that I can learn and Jack did a very good job of explaining one of the areas that I have very little knowledge of and that is laptops, mainly because I've never owned or worked on one. So I just wanted to let you know that your help is appreciated, Jack.