Desktop

Ask something
Discussion Locked

hard drive not seen

0 helpful
10 replies

by sham7usa 1 view

Closed to new repliesThis discussion is closed. It stays readable, but it takes no new replies.
I have a ibm think pad(laptop) and the bios does not reconize the hard drive. I tried boot disk to no avail. I need to know how to fix this problem, I bought it as is there is a hard drive in it.

10 replies

by dmiles

Boot the computer and press key to Enter CMOS panel,check the configuration settings to see if the drive can be detected,in the right column their will be IDE Hard Drive detection try this
Also make sure the hard drive setting is set to Auto
Oncethis is done use FDISK to select drive and verify that any partitions exist.

by fatmann

if this is an older machine the HD probably failed. i have seen this problem many times. if you can't reconize it in the cmos and you try to access that drive letter I.E. "c:" and it says that it can't find the drive. then, the drive has faile assumming the laptop is in working order and all connections are correct. you can order a new dirive for around $150 at cdw.com

by msheekh

Keep in mind that if you just bought the HD, it may not be compatible to motherboard (bios)-if it's an old system.If that is the case then you either upgrade your bios(flash)-contact the manafucruter, or you can get smaller/older HD drive. Another workaround would be to use a newer machine-a one that can see the HD, then install OS after installing it you could reinstall it in the old machine. If that is not the case ( not a new HD), then you would have to play with the bios settings. Hope thatwill give you some hits. Good-lucky

by bradz26

it could be the hard drive is damaged; but run setup and choose "auto select" for IDE drives section. if none are found, replace the disk drive. in a laptop, the disk is harshly abused since they are precision machines. plan on replacing the drive anyway so you have good integrity. from there is simple to install the OS, you also should own rights to the OS and originally installed software (I think)

by goodwin2000

As well as going to BIOS and verifying the system ios seeing the drive, see what manufacturer the hard drive is. The maker may have some diagnostic utilities that can be downloaded. Use these to also check hard drive.

See if you can finf someone else with similar device and configuration and see if HD is seen on their machine. If it is seen, then you may have a systemboard IDE controller issue

This discussion is closed to new replies.