PCTech Forums

I just replaced the IDE hard drive in a friends laptop. I changed the boot menu to CD to do an install and the system wont recognise the hard drive, telling me to press it in firmly and check the connection is secure before powering off and trying again.

Any ideas on what to do next?

Try taking it out and blowing just to make sure there is no dust loged in.

If that doesnt help i can only assume that maybe you have a faulty hdd. Pop the old one back in and see if it gives you the same error

KenA,

Sounds to me like the slave/master jumper is not set right on the new HDD.
Look at the old one to see how it is set, master, slave or cable select.
Now set the new one the same way.

Hi Ken

You shouldn't have to mess with the jumpers on a laptop HD. They are left alone. I haven't seen a lap top with two drives in it, so you normally wouldn't configure that.

Check to see if the drive is seen by the BIOS. If it isn't, then you have a hardware issue. A boot to the CD with a windows install disk should work. It will find the hard drive and Fdisk it and format it and then proceed with the install.

If the Hard drive you are installing previously had Vista on it, fdisk and format the drive first otherewise the XP cd will error out on the install. Vista writes permissions to the HD that can mess you over.

For the laptop using the IDE HDD, there maybe limitation on the max HDD size the BIOS can see the HDD.
Check with the laptop web site for the HDD spec.

Many laptops do not have the HDD jumper, if there is jumper on the HDD, you may try remove all jumper but remember the location of the jumper since you may need to put the jumper back.

Install the HDD to the laptop and let the laptop recapture and recognize the HDD either master, slave or cable select itself.

If hardware issue, you should find other way than this to find the problem.
Hope this helps!
Bill