[jldoc]

I am having a bear of a time adding a 250GB to my XPS Gen2 system and I can't figure out why.
Here are the spces:

XPS Gen2 Bios A06

I have two SATA drives.

1 DVD drive connected to the secondary IDE channel as master (using cable select method) Slave connector is empty.

I am trying to connect the Seagate 250 drive to the primary ide channel (tried it using jumpers for cable select method and master setting - single drive).

Setup is the following:
SATA Drives Raid On
Primary IDE Drive 0 Auto - finds the drive
Primary IDE Drive 1 OFF
Secondary IDE Drive 0 Auto - CD Rom
Secondary IDE Drive 1 - OFF

UDMA - On

Computer beeps get Press F1 to continue of F2 for setup. I try to continue but it won't boot, just displays message again. When I go back into setup. It shows that the drive is found but I cannot boot. The only way I can boot is to turn the Primary Drive off in setup.

Another interesting point. I can boot the drive if I chain it with the DVD drive on the primary channel but that doesn't seem ideal for the DVD. It seems to really slow down it's read/write performance.

Anybody have any answers?

thanks
Jeff

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Ok first things first, you need to reflash your BIOS to a newer version like A09. You will need to go to DELL's website and download it to a floppy. Restart your computer go into the setup and make it boot from the floppy drive first. It should restart, then load the BIOS diskette, follow the prompts, whatever you do DONT TOUCH ANYTHING while the BIOS is being reflashed, dont even move the mouse.
Are doing a fresh install of XP on the new drive? If you are, after you have it installed (just xp, no video drivers etc.) go to microsoft and download ALL of the updates available, I had to use the auto update several times to get all of them. Most importantly you will need to install SERVICE PACK2, thats what enables your comp to see all of the memory available on the new drive. Run the seagate disk wizard go into the maintenance section, itll have an option for you run a self check on the system. It should find the remaining space. Hope that helps.
-Pete.

[p-zero]

Ok first things first, you need to reflash your BIOS to a newer version like A09. You will need to go to DELL's website and download it to a floppy. Restart your computer go into the setup and make it boot from the floppy drive first. It should restart, then load the BIOS diskette, follow the prompts, whatever you do DONT TOUCH ANYTHING while the BIOS is being reflashed, dont even move the mouse.
Are doing a fresh install of XP on the new drive? If you are, after you have it installed (just xp, no video drivers etc.) go to microsoft and download ALL of the updates available, I had to use the auto update several times to get all of them. Most importantly you will need to install SERVICE PACK2, thats what enables your comp to see all of the memory available on the new drive. Run the seagate disk wizard go into the maintenance section, itll have an option for you run a self check on the system. It should find the remaining space. Hope that helps.
-Pete.