[alestor666]

Ive been playing with this computer someone gave up on because of a supposed "hardDrive Failure" well i tried to boot it up and the computer did sa its a hard drive failure but when i check hte bios it says theres no harddrive installed or its an unkown device. So i figured what the heck ill just put one of my hard drives in it well that hard drive that works in another computer for sure produces the same results with this pc also a new problem has arisen the Hard drive that was originaly in the computer now beeps when there is power given to it and yes its the hard drive not the motherboard beeping its a maxtor diamond max 8 regardless hte pc doesnt detect any hard drive i put in it why?


this is an old dell 4600 and on dells sight it says the harddrive is suppose to be a hitachi hard drive but the one i found in the computer is a maxtor drive they said no one replaced the ahrddrive but they did take it to a computer repair store that was going to charge them 80dollars for a new harddrive they didnt take the deal and took it home did that company gank the original hdd and put this dumb maxtor in or did dell put it in when they sold it

Edited by alestor666, 29 September 2008 - 10:03 AM.

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Is this a desktop or laptop?
I would load the bios defaults and see what happens. You could also get the HD test program from the manufacturer and eliminate the drive.
Make sure that the data cable is plugged in right.

[123Runner]

Is this a desktop or laptop?
I would load the bios defaults and see what happens. You could also get the HD test program from the manufacturer and eliminate the drive.
Make sure that the data cable is plugged in right.

[Samm]

If the computer isn't detecting any hard drive you put in it, including ones which work in other systems, then try the following...
(I'm assuming this is an IDE (PATA) drive, not a SATA one so correct me if I'm wrong)

Using the 'known good' hard drive:

1) change the IDE ribbon cable for one which you know works ok.
make sure the ribbon cable is inserted the right way round. Most IDE ribbon cables have different coloured plastic connectors (usually blue, black & grey). Make sure the blue connector is connected to the motherboard & the hard drive is connected to the opposite end of the cable (not the middle connector).

2) If that doesn't work then try connecting the hard drive to the other IDE port (the one that you'd normally connect CDROM drives to)