P4 rebuild help? quickly?!

[1nf3rn0x]

Well, i'm rebuilding a p4 for a dude. The primary OS was 40gb as it was used as a network pc.
Well, i took out the OS 40gb ide drive and put the 250gb sata to primary drive. I got to BIOS and it cannot be found? I'm tryna boot off a cd to the disk? So what's the problem? I put back in the OS drive WHICH can be found in BIOS though the other hdd cannot be found?

 

[qubit]

Sounds like you have a bad drive.

Can it be seen on another PC?

Does this PC have a VIA chipset? Some of the early ones didn't have very reliable SATA implementations.

Finally, a bit of a long shot, but look around the BIOS to see if there are any settings which might be conflicting with it. Clearing the BIOS may help too.

 

[1nf3rn0x]

This drive was in the system. He wants a rebuild as the OS drive is too small and windows complains that HDD disk space is low. I'm trying to Partition some of the 250gb maybe 120gb or so for OS and the rest for his shit. He literally has so much shit on the 40gb it's not funny. And to make it worse, its 5400RPM D;

 

[qubit]

If you connect the 256GB drive to the original SATA port, can it now be seen? This might give us a clue to the problem. It's possible that the ports you're switching between are on different controllers.

 

[1nf3rn0x]

The old drive was IDE and this one is SATA? or connect the sata to the port which the OS drive was in?

 

[_JP_]

This might sound very stupid, because I'm almost sure it's not the case, since it has SATA ports, but does that motherboard support 48-bit LBA?
If it doesn't, that's the reason it does not recognize that HDD.
That could one of those transition boards, that has "half support" for new tech.
Give us the model, btw. Thanks.

 

[1nf3rn0x]

The reason no one is looking at is that this hdd was previously used in this system. But suddenly does not want to be recognised?

So the hdd im trying to get recognised was working just hours ago in the same pc, but now putting it as main drive it cannot be found? WTF?Z!??!!

 

[qubit]

Oh duh! I've just realized that you've got IDE & SATA drives in the one system.

You should check your SATA power and data connectors are seated properly and that the drive is actually spinning up. I'm assuming that you haven't moved the SATA drive to another port, so perhaps it's really had it's day now.

Try connecting another SATA drive and see if that is recognized.

Also, can you clarify what you mean by not recognized? Does it show up in the BIOS? If yes, then is that port perhaps not bootable on that mobo?

If there's a BIOS update, then it's worth trying that, assuming you can first verify that the HD is good, perhaps on another PC.

 

[1nf3rn0x]

The SATA hdd is FULLY functional. It boots up as SECONDARY hdd and contains all information. Though, i wish to boot it up as a PRIMARY drive and install windows on it, which when I try this, it cannot be found through BIOS.

 

[BarbaricSoul]

This sounds like what I went though when I installed my SSD

Look in your bios and set your "HARD DRIVE BOOT PRIORITY" to show the 256gb drive as your primary boot drive.

 

[1nf3rn0x]

Look in your bios and set your "HARD DRIVE BOOT PRIORITY" to show the 256gb drive as your primary boot drive.

The shitty BIOS doesn't have auto detect let alone hard drive boot priority :S. I tried switching the pin blocker physically on the hdd aswell, no luck.

 

[netieb]

I dont know if this counts even with sata, but is the IDE jumpered as Primary? If yes the other wont be recognized.

 

[qubit]

The SATA hdd is FULLY functional. It boots up as SECONDARY hdd and contains all information. Though, i wish to boot it up as a PRIMARY drive and install windows on it, which when I try this, it cannot be found through BIOS.

It sounds like a dodgy BIOS there, then. What's the make and model of that mobo? Has it got the latest BIOS on it?

In fact it sounds like the 48-bit LBA issue that JP pointed out, before. Once Windows has booted off the IDE drive it can see the SATA drive, but the BIOS cannot see it properly directly.

I dont know if this counts even with sata, but is the IDE jumpered as Primary? If yes the other wont be recognized.

Master and slave do not apply to SATA connections, as it's only ever one drive per connection.

 

[1nf3rn0x]

Well, the system is a Dell 4600. So, searching it should find the specs for ya.

 

[_JP_]

Well, I've checked the computer and it has either a 865PE or a 865G chipset. Both support 48-bit LBA addressing, so the problem is not there.

EDIT: I cannot understand what do you mean by Primary and Secondary. As far as I know, IDE/PATA has Master and Slave on each channel, SATA is...only one drive per channel. You say you switched the pin blocker on the SATA HDD. What pin blocker?

 

[qubit]

Well, I've checked the computer and it has either a 865PE or a 865G chipset. Both support 48-bit LBA addressing, so the problem is not there.

EDIT: I canno understand what do you mean by Primary and Secondary. As far as I know, IDE/PATA has Master and Slave on each channel, SATA is...only one drive. You say you switched the pin blocker on the SATA HDD. What pin blocker?

Primary and secondary are equivalent terms to master and slave (I kinda like the latter, don't you? ).

+1 what pin blocker?

 

[whitrzac]

the dell should have a boot order menu...

 

[_JP_]

Besides the pin-blocker, that you haven't answered us so far, I've got another question for you. Was there any IDE-to-SATA (or vice-versa) converter on any of those disks, you might have forgot to mention?
I'm saying this because of you mentioning "primary" and "secondary" while talking of both SATA and IDE disks.

Primary and secondary are equivalent terms to master and slave (I kinda like the latter, don't you? ).

I only knew the latter. In my knowledge (that is, from what I learned and always have known), Master and Slave were the cable "hierarchy" while primary and secondary were the IDE channels (defined for HDDs and ODDs, respectively). I'm not saying that you are wrong, though. There are all sorts of definitions for hardware.

 

[Disparia]

I only knew the latter. In my knowledge (that is, from what I learned and always have known), Master and Slave were the cable "hierarchy" while primary and secondary were the IDE channels (defined for HDDs and ODDs, respectively). I'm not saying that you are wrong, though. There are all sorts of definitions for hardware.

Well if you won't, I will!

Sorry qubit, I'd make you take level 1 support tasks for a day as punishment if you used terminology that way in my IT dept.

 

[qubit]

Sorry qubit, I'd make you take level 1 support tasks for a day as punishment if you used terminology that way in my IT dept.

The terms are equivalent and I explained that. What are you talking about?

And BTW I work in IT and I'm very good at it, thanks. Now go sit on the naughty spot! lol

 

[Disparia]

Because is it more correct to use Master/Slave when referring to cable position and Primary/Secondary when referring to channels. And if multiple controllers, would have to refer to which one.

If they were equivalent (which I disagree with), it would be policy to only use my way regardless

Just imagine what I do to my dev's that improperly (according to the declared doctype) close their HTML tags!!!

 

[sneekypeet]

you all are a tad confused, let me see if I can shed light on this for all those helping...

He had an old rig with two IDE devices, CD/DVD and small HDD, on top of that the SATA drive was used for storage.

I believe he is attempting to just move the rig to SATA HDD and an IDE CD/DVD.

My question at this point is have you removed the IDE hard drive while attempting this reinstall?