Replacing Sata Hard Drive Help

saxal

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Feb 13, 2012
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So, i have an old Dell Vostro 200 with a Seagate Barracuda 160gb 7200.10 hard drive and I decided to replace it with harddrive with a little more memory. The harddrive that I decided to replace it with is a Seagate Barracuda 500gb 7200.12 (which i had lying around the house). They are both 3.5 inch SATA drives. When I put in the 500gb SATA drive and pressed the power button, the computer didnt start up (no cpu fan or psu light). Instead an amber light turned on and stayed on until i unplugged it from the wall. I put back it the 160gb SATA and it booted right up, everything was normal.

Was the 500gb SATA
 

saxal

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yes, the opperating system was on the 160gb hard drive. I thought it would still boot into bios with the 500gb hard drive. Im going to hook up the 500gb as a second drive now. Ill post results
 

saxal

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plugged in the 500gb SATA as a second harddrive with the 160gb SATA as the primary. Would not boot. Same as last time (steady amber light) but the psu light was on green
 

RealBeast

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It it either a problem with the drive, or with the cable assuming that you used the same cable or SATA controller. I would also try to use it as a secondary drive on another machine just to check it again.

Are there any jumpers on the drive -- there should not be, remove if there are any.
 

saxal

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i used the same sata cable as the drive that works and I also used another sata cable. No jumpers on the drive. Im just going to assume its dead since i dont have another machine to test it on. I appreciate all the help Realbeast!