Questions

Why can't I detect my old hard drive?

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0 Votes

Why can't I detect my old hard drive?

AnthonyThe8th
Okay. So in my computer, I originally owned a 40 GB IPE Seagate Barracuda. I ended up buying a hard drive from someone online, which is a SATA 500 GB Western Digital. After hooking the Western Digital to a SATA to IPE converter, I turned on the computer to get a 'grub error'. I put in my Windows 7 Ultimate CD and formatted it. Now that it has downloaded all the updates and what not, it still does not detect the Seagate in the BIOS, Device Manager, or in My Computer whenever the Western Digital is hooked up. When the Western Digital is unplugged, I can resume using the Seagate freely. Also, why is my Western Digital making the computer run extremely slow? At times, the computer will freeze or shut down on its own.

Member Answers

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    So when you connect the SATA Drive

    HAL 9000 Moderator

    Is the IDE still connected?

    I would hazard a guess that you are using a IDE to SATA Converter and that it doesn't have the option to set the SATA Drive to Slave or even Cable Select and the IDE Channel is being messed up and not able to detect any HDD at all.

    if you put the SATA Drive on the other IDE Ribbon it may work but from my experience IDE to SATA Converters are marginal at best you are better off fitting a SATA Card to a PCI Slot on the M'Board.

    Col

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    I'll make a guess, though not certain as to "why",

    wizard57m-cnet Moderator

    I would suspect that something in BIOS needs to be set to detect the drive adapter, or some other setting as to the type of hard drive. Also, your BIOS may not handle larger hard drives (rare with newer BIOS, but common on older ones), since you didn't give the age of your computer, that's the best guess I can give you at the moment. So, if possible, enter the drive parameters manually in BIOS, if it supports SATA at all.

  • +
    0 Votes

    I'll make a guess, though not certain as to "why",

    wizard57m-cnet Moderator

    I would suspect that something in BIOS needs to be set to detect the drive adapter, or some other setting as to the type of hard drive. Also, your BIOS may not handle larger hard drives (rare with newer BIOS, but common on older ones), since you didn't give the age of your computer, that's the best guess I can give you at the moment. So, if possible, enter the drive parameters manually in BIOS, if it supports SATA at all.

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    0 Votes

    So when you connect the SATA Drive

    HAL 9000 Moderator

    Is the IDE still connected?

    I would hazard a guess that you are using a IDE to SATA Converter and that it doesn't have the option to set the SATA Drive to Slave or even Cable Select and the IDE Channel is being messed up and not able to detect any HDD at all.

    if you put the SATA Drive on the other IDE Ribbon it may work but from my experience IDE to SATA Converters are marginal at best you are better off fitting a SATA Card to a PCI Slot on the M'Board.

    Col