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#1
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Need help after installing new hard drive
I just recently put a brand new 40gb hard drive into a relatives computer. Everything seems to be installed correctly but I am having a problem installing windows onto that new hard drive. I hope someone out there can help me. First of all, I can't open the CDROM drive (either one, even have an Acer CDWR) and as far as I know, when you use the floppy boot disk, it will locate the drivers for the reg. cdrom and allow you to use it. My problem is this.. I put the floppy in, load it with windows 98 support and it goes through the steps of trying to start the installation process such as recognizing the hardware. Eventually, it comes to a screen where it says that the computer can't recognize (doesn't contain) valid Fat or Fat32 partition, so it suggests running fdisk from the command prompt. It then takes me to the command prompt where I type in FDISK next to the A: drive command. It says "no fixed disks present" when I hit enter. So I type in C: and it goes to that drive, I type in FDISK and it says the same thing, "no fixed disks present." Now as you can see, I am stuck in a rock and a hard place. And since it can't go through the motions of loading everything, it won't open the cd drives which means I am limited to the floppy drive currently. Anyone have ANY suggestions on how to stop this problem and move onward in the installation process? I am to my wits ends with ideas. I have tried everything I know to pull it out of this but nothing seems to work, I always end up with the same result. Hope you can help! Either respond or email to
Thank you!!! |
#2
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Is the drive correctly recognized in the BIOS?
John HJobe71h wrote: I just recently put a brand new 40gb hard drive into a relatives computer. Everything seems to be installed correctly but I am having a problem installing windows onto that new hard drive. I hope someone out there can help me. First of all, I can't open the CDROM drive (either one, even have an Acer CDWR) and as far as I know, when you use the floppy boot disk, it will locate the drivers for the reg. cdrom and allow you to use it. My problem is this.. I put the floppy in, load it with windows 98 support and it goes through the steps of trying to start the installation process such as recognizing the hardware. Eventually, it comes to a screen where it says that the computer can't recognize (doesn't contain) valid Fat or Fat32 partition, so it suggests running fdisk from the command prompt. It then takes me to the command prompt where I type in FDISK next to the A: drive command. It says "no fixed disks present" when I hit enter. So I type in C: and it goes to that drive, I type in FDISK and it says the same thing, "no fixed disks present." Now as you can see, I am stuck in a rock and a hard place. And since it can't go through the motions of loading everything, it won't open the cd drives which means I am limited to the floppy drive currently. Anyone have ANY suggestions on how to stop this problem and move onward in the installation process? I am to my wits ends with ideas. I have tried everything I know to pull it out of this but nothing seems to work, I always end up with the same result. Hope you can help! Either respond or email to Thank you!!! |
#3
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"John John" wrote in message ... Is the drive correctly recognized in the BIOS? and if not... you may need to install a pci controller card or possibly use drive overlay software usually provided with a new HD |
#4
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Have you installed the jumper "Master/Slave" of this HDD in the correct
position, that does not conflict with the position of CD-ROM drive at the same ribbon cable? If this HDD is the only HDD in the system -- it has to be connected to the end of the cable of the first IDE channel, and set as Master, while CD-ROM on the same cable has to be set as Slave. If it is the only HDD on the cable -- it has to be set as Master in most cases, or, if it is Western Digital drive, as Single (if there is no such position -- this jumper has to be removed at all). -- Mikhail Zhilin http://www.aha.ru/~mwz Sorry, no technical support by e-mail. Please reply to the newsgroups only. ====== On Sat, 19 Feb 2005 21:45:39 +0000, HJobe71h wrote: I just recently put a brand new 40gb hard drive into a relatives computer. Everything seems to be installed correctly but I am having a problem installing windows onto that new hard drive. I hope someone out there can help me. First of all, I can't open the CDROM drive (either one, even have an Acer CDWR) and as far as I know, when you use the floppy boot disk, it will locate the drivers for the reg. cdrom and allow you to use it. My problem is this.. I put the floppy in, load it with windows 98 support and it goes through the steps of trying to start the installation process such as recognizing the hardware. Eventually, it comes to a screen where it says that the computer can't recognize (doesn't contain) valid Fat or Fat32 partition, so it suggests running fdisk from the command prompt. It then takes me to the command prompt where I type in FDISK next to the A: drive command. It says "no fixed disks present" when I hit enter. So I type in C: and it goes to that drive, I type in FDISK and it says the same thing, "no fixed disks present." Now as you can see, I am stuck in a rock and a hard place. And since it can't go through the motions of loading everything, it won't open the cd drives which means I am limited to the floppy drive currently. Anyone have ANY suggestions on how to stop this problem and move onward in the installation process? I am to my wits ends with ideas. I have tried everything I know to pull it out of this but nothing seems to work, I always end up with the same result. Hope you can help! Either respond or email to Thank you!!! |
#5
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OK, here is the latest happenings. After reading the question as to whether the BIOS detected the drive, I checked it out and it did not recognize anything. I made sure they were all set to AUTO DETECT and restarted, still did not detect anything.
Then I started thinking about the master/slave jumper. I took out the jumper and reversed a cable, both the CD ROM and the CDRW were recognized. So one problem solved. NOW, I still can't fdisk, it is still saying there are no fixed disks present. That was after I booted the computer with the boot disk only. Once I put in the Windows Installation cd, it began the process and then went to a blue screen stating that it basically can't locate the hard drive. Is it possible that my jumper settings are STILL wrong? This just baffles me because it recognized the cd rom drivers but still no luck with the hard drive. I don't understand it either because at one point it asked if I wanted to boot off of the CD ROM or off of the Hard Disk. Confusing.. Any help w/this would be very appreciated! Quote:
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#6
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The Hard Drive MUST be seen and PROPERLY recognized in the BIOS before
you can do anything. If the BIOS does not see the drive there is no sense trying anything else. You will have to do some "trial and error" work with the jumper settings and location of the drive on the IDE cable. Try setting the drive jumper to "Master" then try it on the Primary IDE controller at the end of the cable or in the middle. Or set the jumper to "Cable Select" and try again on both location on the IDE cable. The drive location is different on regular and on cable select cable. Although the cables are almost identical in appearance the type of cable you have makes a difference. Once the drive is recognized in the BIOS you will then have to run fdisk and create 1 or more partitions then format them. John HJobe71h wrote: OK, here is the latest happenings. After reading the question as to whether the BIOS detected the drive, I checked it out and it did not recognize anything. I made sure they were all set to AUTO DETECT and restarted, still did not detect anything. Then I started thinking about the master/slave jumper. I took out the jumper and reversed a cable, both the CD ROM and the CDRW were recognized. So one problem solved. NOW, I still can't fdisk, it is still saying there are no fixed disks present. That was after I booted the computer with the boot disk only. Once I put in the Windows Installation cd, it began the process and then went to a blue screen stating that it basically can't locate the hard drive. Is it possible that my jumper settings are STILL wrong? This just baffles me because it recognized the cd rom drivers but still no luck with the hard drive. I don't understand it either because at one point it asked if I wanted to boot off of the CD ROM or off of the Hard Disk. Confusing.. Any help w/this would be very appreciated! Mikhail Zhilin Wrote: Have you installed the jumper "Master/Slave" of this HDD in the correct position, that does not conflict with the position of CD-ROM drive at the same ribbon cable? If this HDD is the only HDD in the system -- it has to be connected to the end of the cable of the first IDE channel, and set as Master, while CD-ROM on the same cable has to be set as Slave. If it is the only HDD on the cable -- it has to be set as Master in most cases, or, if it is Western Digital drive, as Single (if there is no such position -- this jumper has to be removed at all). -- Mikhail Zhilin http://www.aha.ru/~mwz Sorry, no technical support by e-mail. Please reply to the newsgroups only. ====== On Sat, 19 Feb 2005 21:45:39 +0000, HJobe71h wrote: - I just recently put a brand new 40gb hard drive into a relatives computer. Everything seems to be installed correctly but I am having a problem installing windows onto that new hard drive. I hope someone out there can help me. First of all, I can't open the CDROM drive (either one, even have an Acer CDWR) and as far as I know, when you use the floppy boot disk, it will locate the drivers for the reg. cdrom and allow you to use it. My problem is this.. I put the floppy in, load it with windows 98 support and it goes through the steps of trying to start the installation process such as recognizing the hardware. Eventually, it comes to a screen where it says that the computer can't recognize (doesn't contain) valid Fat or Fat32 partition, so it suggests running fdisk from the command prompt. It then takes me to the command prompt where I type in FDISK next to the A: drive command. It says "no fixed disks present" when I hit enter. So I type in C: and it goes to that drive, I type in FDISK and it says the same thing, "no fixed disks present." Now as you can see, I am stuck in a rock and a hard place. And since it can't go through the motions of loading everything, it won't open the cd drives which means I am limited to the floppy drive currently. Anyone have ANY suggestions on how to stop this problem and move onward in the installation process? I am to my wits ends with ideas. I have tried everything I know to pull it out of this but nothing seems to work, I always end up with the same result. Hope you can help! Either respond or email to Thank you!!!- |
#7
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Yep, that is the problem. The drive STILL isn't recognized in the BIOS. I did in fact find the cd that came with it (I don't know why but I didn't remember pulling it out of the package a month ago when I first got started on installing this new hard drive) and created the correct diskette to start it all up, but it is still saying that there is no hard drive. I don't know why or how but I am starting to believe that the hard drive is bad. It was purchased new from Office Max, it is a Western Digital drive. I am going to check it out on another computer and see if it is recognized there. Thanks for all of your help and wish me luck!!!
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#8
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Stupid question, but... did you plug in the power supply cable on the drive?
John HJobe71h wrote: Yep, that is the problem. The drive STILL isn't recognized in the BIOS. I did in fact find the cd that came with it (I don't know why but I didn't remember pulling it out of the package a month ago when I first got started on installing this new hard drive) and created the correct diskette to start it all up, but it is still saying that there is no hard drive. I don't know why or how but I am starting to believe that the hard drive is bad. It was purchased new from Office Max, it is a Western Digital drive. I am going to check it out on another computer and see if it is recognized there. Thanks for all of your help and wish me luck!!! |
#9
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HJobe71h wrote:
I just recently put a brand new 40gb hard drive into a relatives computer. Everything seems to be installed correctly but I am having a problem installing windows onto that new hard drive. I hope someone out there can help me. First of all, I can't open the CDROM drive (either one, even have an Acer CDWR) and as far as I know, when you use the floppy boot disk, it will locate the drivers for the reg. cdrom and allow you to use it. My problem is this.. I put the floppy in, load it with windows 98 support and it goes through the steps of trying to start the installation process such as recognizing the hardware. Eventually, it comes to a screen where it says that the computer can't recognize (doesn't contain) valid Fat or Fat32 partition, so it suggests running fdisk from the command prompt. It then takes me to the command prompt where I type in FDISK next to the A: drive command. It says "no fixed disks present" when I hit enter. So I type in C: and it goes to that drive, I type in FDISK and it says the same thing, "no fixed disks present." Now as you can see, I am stuck in a rock and a hard place. And since it can't go through the motions of loading everything, it won't open the cd drives which means I am limited to the floppy drive currently. Anyone have ANY suggestions on how to stop this problem and move onward in the installation process? I am to my wits ends with ideas. I have tried everything I know to pull it out of this but nothing seems to work, I always end up with the same result. Hope you can help! Either respond or email to Thank you!!! If you have a disk that came with the drive you should boot with that in the floppy and setup the HD that way. Providing you have the drive installed and jumped properly. J. |
#10
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There was no disk that came with the drive.
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