dell dimension 8100 - harddisk not recognised

[TomVervoort]

Hi,

after I discovered the imb deskstar 60GB HDD in my Dell Dimension 8100 suffered from the 'click of death' problem, I went to the store and bought a Samsung SP1654N 160GB HDD. Unfortunately, the bios doesn't automatically recognise the drive.

So I tried to configure it manually, but I ran into troubles... when I try to manually put in CHS information, I can't set cylinder value larger than 1023 and I can't set sector value larger than 63. When I look at the pre-installed configurations, I notice there are actually drives with larger cyclinder values than 1023. What could be the problem !?

The bios version is A08 with service tag 3B0570J.

Any help greatly appreciated !!!

 

[Codesmith]

Modern hard drives use LBA, or Logical Block Addressing, not CHS settings.

The Drive Geometry settings that are included in the CMOS setup for backward compatiblity with obsolete hard drives that have less capacity than many thumbdrives.

The proper setting for any modern IDE device is "Auto".

Most likely if the disc isn't being recognized its because you haven't set the jumpers properly, or the data or power cable is lose or defective.

 

[TomVervoort]

I'm certain jumpers are correct and there are no problems with data or power cable.

 

[chuckburmester]

I had the same problem with my 8400 and a bios update solved the problem


Chuck

bios A09

 

[TomVervoort]

I'll try the bios update. Actually I allready thought of that, but my floppy disk drive doesn't work. I tried it with a caldera dos boot cd, but then it sais 'not enough memory'. I'll just go and by a new floppy disk drive. 🙂

 

[chuckburmester]

you should be able to download the bios to your desktop and run it from there. check on dell's site before you purchase a new drive, that is how I have done 2 bios updates now


Chuck

 

[ParadigmSys]

Hello,

I've seen that too. Yes, leave AUTO in BIOS for the HDD.
Try changing out the ide cable and use the end connector (master).
Check your PSU connector, no voltage - no HDD in BIOS.
While in BIOS and PC running, check to see if HDD is spinning/humming.

Now it's the HDD jumper game:
Try CS (cable select) jumper setting.
Then Master jumper setting.
Remove it entirely (some Western Digitals, etc., are seen w/o a jumper)

Did you see it in BIOS?

(Also try another drive on cable to see if it registers in BIOS)

If it still is invisible to your machine then go for a BIOS update.
See if there is a web based Windows/IE6.0 version for your mainboard.

Gigabyte and MSI use web based updating, a lot safer than buggy floppy technique that if done incorrectly could render your PC useless... ;-(

I hope this helps. I know it get's frustrating when you mix PC parts from many manufactures. some work and some won't... and then there is the XP compatibility thing... oh boy! Hardware works, but now software problems... DOH!

Have a good weekend.

Del ;-)

Dual Opteron 250's
Dual 7800GT's in sli
Dual HDD in RAID
Dual channel RAM
Dual 21" Displays

...Fun!

 

[Codesmith]

You may want to quickly verify that its the hard drive's size that is to blame by using a jumper setting to reduce its capacity to 32 GB.

If the drive shows up fine then you know the BIOS upgrade is needed.

If the drive doesn't show up then the problem lies elsewhere.

Also it wouldn't hurt to test the hard drive in another PC if you have one handy.