Help, hard drive problems

zenmaster

Goldielocks wrote:

one's a wide cable (bit like a plastic ribbon!) that carries data

Not on a SATA drive. It looks something like this.

Also, installing XP on a SATA drive is a bit more involved than just running the XP CD (see here ) so, if you are not tech savvy, then PC World (or a local independent retailer ) would probably be your best bet.

Goldielocks

Thanks for clarifying the cable, it was late & I was tired!
G

Dennis99

When you press F12 on start up do you get an option to Run Hard Drive Diagnostics? If you can run it you will get Maxtor 6Y160M0 Return Code 7
I would imagine the drive is knackered, this is well documented with Maxtor rubbish. I posted this on the Dell forums November 2005:

I've had the same problem twice now on my Dimension 4700 bought last October. The first was replaced under warranty, the second (both Maxtor) failed last week, out of warranty. I decided to replace with a Western Digital drive on SATA-0 and installed Windows and all my stuff on this. I then went into the bios and activated SATA-2 and connected the faulty drive to that and it showed up in My Computer as drive E. I was then able to get any stuff I needed off this. (After the first failure I back up regularly anyway)

The Western Digital which (touch wood) has been faultless since Nov 05 is this bought from Savastore but others may be cheaper :
http://www.savastore.com/productinfo/product.aspx?catalog_name=Savastore&product_id=10283402&pid=45&tid=220

EDIT: I've changed the above - to get diagnostics it's F12 not F2

mustbemad

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, either i have installed the new hard drive wrong or the problem is someting other than a faulty hard drive

I put the new hard drive in last night but i'm still getting the same error message about not detecting SATA-0, hit f1 to try again or f2 to set up. Also, now on what i assume is the BIOS thing, it used to say 'Maxtor 6Y160M0, 160 GB it now just says 'unknown' is this because i havent been able to load the hard drive disc on yet?

please help, i'm getting desperate(ly sick of the sight of my 12 yo's sulky face lol)

Angela x

mustbemad

sorry for bumping this up again

Just wondering if anyone has any last minute advice before i give in and take it to the repair shop?

Angela x

mustbemad

bit of an update, i can now see the hard drive i installed in the BIOS but still no sign of a boot device being found

Angela x

Dennis99

The hard drive is like an empty filing cabinet, it now needs dividing into seperate drawers and then XP needs to go in the first drawer.
Try starting the computer up - press F12 on the Dell splash screen, change the boot device to the CD drive, put the XP disc in the drive (if you've found it) and reboot and see what happens.

Sleepy_2

Long shot.... I've seen a similar problem happen because of a keyboard fault, or even if a USB keyboard is used instead of a PS/2 (round plug) keyboard. Could you use a different keyboard to test ?

mustbemad

thanks everyone, i've given in now and taken it to the repair shop, just hope they dont phone and say its the motherboard that has gone

Angela x