Replacement hard disk

peter_the_piper

I have just had a replacement hard disk sent to me by Hitachi which does not seem to work. I have installed it into another computer, which is on 98, and installed it as primary slave using the jumper information from the Hitachi website. Unfortunaately the bios did not recognise it. I swapped around the cable so that it was on the end plug and the middle. I swapped the power connector and removed the working drive plug and set the jumpers on the Hitachi drive to primary master, no luck. Is there anything else I can do or have I been unlucky and got a dud one.
Peter.
P.S. Earthed myself before opening antistatic pack.

boogiemaster

Windows needs to format hard drives before it can use them!
Go into control panel admin tools computer manegment and click on disk manegment.
You drive should show up there? right click your drive and click on format.

blinky

Do you have anything else on the IDE cable - if so try it without.

Try a different power connector too. You should here the drive spin up and it should get warm. If it makes horrible crunching and grinding noises it's had a head crash in transit. (hard drives are much more sensitive to shock and drops than static).

Joe_Bloggs

@Boogiemaster
The device should show up in the bios before any operating system could access the thing.
@peter_the_piper
I suspect a dud. What did you expect from a company with such a noteworthy history ?
J_B.( I have a Tesla coil that can make broken devices alive, in a spectacular fashion.)

peter_the_piper

blinky wrote:

Do you have anything else on the IDE cable - if so try it without.

Try a different power connector too. You should here the drive spin up and it should get warm. If it makes horrible crunching and grinding noises it's had a head crash in transit. (hard drives are much more sensitive to shock and drops than static).

I have tried the disk with another running one and the new as slave, I've swapped the cable around so that the new drive is at the end and in the middle.I've also tried it on its own to no effect. I've gone to another power connector and used the same one as the working drive. All I get is Hard Disk Fail.
No lovely graunching noises unfortunately I'd have known it was dead then. I think the only thing left is an RMA from Hitachi.

drlight_2

I can think of two things that can hook upto a drive that isn't detcted by the bios, Try downloading a hitachi diagnostics disk, also windows xp can hook up a drive that isn't detected by the bios, if xp is your op then see if it picks up your disk during install.

Toxteth_OGrady

Download and burn an Ultimate Boot CD from here. Boot your system from the CD and run the Hitachi Drive Fitness Test tool from there.

:cool:

TOG

boogiemaster

You could try enable Lba in the bios? I think windows 98 dosent like drives over a certain size.
And i've had a drive before that didant show up in the bios!!! I enabled Lba and then it showed up?
Some computers are funny and dont like certain drives, ive had a few like that and some Engineers have had problems with my first computers.
Ive built a lot of computers myself and i've fixed a lot of problems on my own.
Just try booting the drive on its own? or boot from cd rom and try and get XP to install?

peter_the_piper

I have downloaded the DFT and burned a bootable cd. Will give this a try at the soonest opportunity.
Havn't tried to choose lba but will do so.
Thanks all.
Peter

peter_the_piper

I downloaded the DFT and ran it but it did not detect the disk. I tried changeing the bios to lba but it did not make any difference. I'm loath to send it back without thorough checking as I don't want to look a p*****k if they accept it back and it works.
Peter
P.S. I've been advised by them to do a retest so thats to be done later today and advise them the result.
Peter

boogiemaster

Try it on a firends computer? if it dont work then? send it back and tell them thanks for wasteing your time!