Hardware

Ask something
Question Locked

dell optiplex GX240 small form factor not recognizing HDD

0 helpful
4 replies

by returnofstickinglikeglue

Closed to new repliesThis discussion is closed. It stays readable, but it takes no new replies.

Hello
I recently obtained a Dell optiplex GX240 and intended to use it to replace my current pc .in my current PC I had two HDDS one 20gb western digital and one seagate 120gb however as the gx240 only has space for one HDD I cloned all the information from the 20gb (master) onto the 120gb using norton ghost 2003 .

when I put the HDD into the gx240 I get the following message "primary hard drive 0 not found" then "strike f1 to retry or f2 to enter setup"

I went into bios to check it was setup correctly primary 0 set to auto showing as "unknown device" primary 1 set to off secondary 0 set to auto showing my cd rom correctly secondary 1 set to off(so I believe that is correct)

I checked the jumpers they are all set to cable select (the HDD uses a 80 wire IDE cable which is already on the motherboard)

I tried pressing ALT+F then ALT+B -auto IDE configuration still doesn't recognize HDD

I tested other HDDS in the GX240 a fujitsu MPE3084AE (8.45GB0),fujitsu MPF3204AH (20.49gb),western digital WD400BB caviar (40gb) all of these were recognized and worked.

I tested my seagate 120gb ST3120020A in another pc and it was recognized so it is certainly not a dead drive .

I checked all IDE cables tried it on the cd drives IDE cable but still not recognized .I have reflashed bios by removing battery and changing jumper on motherboard .

SO I really am stumped and do not know what to do My GX240 is using bios revision A01 .The hard drive is ultra ATA

is there a chance the gx240 does not recognize drives bigger than 40gb ?

4 replies

by returnofstickinglikeglue

I removed the jumper and tried it on master however it still did not work .

I happened to try it on cable select but this time with a different jumper and it worked !

so I assume the first jumper was not making a connection

thanks for the help

by ashij

Hi!

Lets try hardware troubleshooting first.
I believe that the MB has 2 IDE ports.

First of all, make sure that the HD is connected in the primary position. (if there are 3 connectors on the cable then the way it's set is MB-IDE --> Secondary IDE --> Primary IDE, where MB-IDE end is connected to the motherboard.)
Next, set the HD to Master
and set the CD to slave.

The reason for this, I had many computers act funny when the HD was set to cable select.

Ash

This discussion is closed to new replies.