BIOS Message on Start-up about Hard Drive

Question

On boot-up and before windows loads I get a very brief error message that says something to the effect of:   ' The Dell Disk Monitoring Service has detected your IDE Device is operating outside of normal parameters'   The message pops up for less than a second and I can barely read it. So far I have: 1) Unplugged and plugged back in the IDE cable to the hard drive 2) Unplugged and plugged back in the power cable to the hard drive 3) Run several Scandisk operations and defragged (no apparent problems)   I have a 4 year old Dimension 8200 with Maxtor 5T040H4 Drive. Maxtor's Powermax will not run because I don't have a floppy drive installed.   ANY suggestions on what to do would be great. I really don't want to replace the drive and migrate data.

isahotwok · Answer

I would go to www.maxtor.com and download their hard drive diagnostic test. You should run that and check your hard drive for errors.

shesagordie · Answer

mehranm2.

That's a S.M.A.R.T drive error message. It's telling you that the hard drive is failing, backup and data you wish to save and replace the drive ASAP.

http://support.dell.com/support/topics/global.aspx/support/kb/en/document?dn=1012192&c=us&l=en&s=dhs&cs=19

Bev.

mehranm2 · Answer

Ok, good call Bev and thanks for the link. I have taken precautions and backed-up as much data as I reasonably could onto CDs but I will replace the drive ASAP.

Any advice on how to migrate data from the existing drive (including the OS and settings) to a new drive? I know its possible but I assume it requires adding a new drive as a slave, copying everything over and then rebooting with the new drive as the master and the old one as the slave. Any links or instructions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

isahotwok · Answer

Go to www.xxclone.com and download their freeware software. You will be able to make an identical copy of your hard drive to another hard drive. This works really good and have heard nothing but good things about it. I just had to do the same last week. Didnt lose one thing :)

shesagordie · Answer

mehranm2.   Install the new HD as a slave and use CasperXP version 2.0, Drive Image or even the imaging software provided by the HD manufacturer, to clone the primary to the secondary.   Then remove the old HD and replace with the new one set as the master Disk 0 and it should boot right up.   .    Bev.

mehranm2 · Answer

Ok, so I purchased a Hitachi hard drive last night and installed Casper XP. However things are worse now.

After hooking up the new drive, I used the Hitachi software as instructed to setup the new drive. Instead of configuring the new drive, it configured the open space on my old drive (4.2 Gigs). On reboot, its requests to load the os from CD or the c drive. Its really messed up now and I am concerned that I may have to take it to a professional. I can't seem to boot up from my old drive and delete the new partition created by the hitachi software.

Mark

isahotwok · Answer

This was a fairly simple task. You should have left your old hard drive alone like I mentioned..... then installed the new drive as a slave drive..... copy your entire old drive to the new drive using xxclone..... then install the new drive and configure it and your all set.

mehranm2 · Answer

You're right. This should have been a piece of cake. Is it possible for the drive to be detected and usuable with out the Hitachi software?

In other words, can I set the jumpers to slave, hook it up and have access to it?

Storage, Drives & Media

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