area51m7700 WD SATA 3.0GB/S

Just bought New Western Digital Scorpio Black 320gb, 3.0gb/s 7200rpm, 16mb cache for my Area 51 m7700 laptop. I also purchased new hd cable b/c old cable supported IDE ata hard drive. Do I need to jump new hd? How do you jump HD? Will this hard drive work on my laptop? Any help, plz I need laptop for college classes and Im not sure how exactly to do this.
Thanks
Jess

 

you should just be able to plug it in and install your OS on there

im not sure .. so ignore it all.... ive never seen a ide and sata laptop

 

screen keeps going to black screen with flashing dash mark on boot up.. have to reboot a few times before it boots up. My windows xp disc is unreadable as well, crappy.

 

On boot up setting up windows... Section files.scsi.ulsata_nt5 of the INF file is invalid
what does that mean?? I have to reboot on boot up a few times before it will boot up. It goes to a black screen with a blinking dash when it wont boot up.

 

it then said

File caused an unexpected error (0) at line 2166 in d:/xpsprtm/base/boot/setup/oemd.c.

 

get another Windows CD.... you can order one from Microsoft... like $5 I believe.

 

I wrote alienware and asked if the new HD I bought would work (Western Digital Scorpio Black 320gb, 3.0gb/s 7200rpm, 16mb cache ) on my Alienware area 51 m7700.

Alienwares response was "your computer can handle a maximum size of 100GB per hard drive, for a total of 200GB of storage. The hard drive that you have purchased is not compatible with your computer.

How can that be?? I can only use 100gb hds??? That doesnt seem right. Why? any adivce

 

Trulife, I had the same problem as you,

Follow this guide I made, it will show you how to make the drives recognized

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=347779

The early revision D900K/D900T boards did not support SATA 300 drives, only SATA 150. You need to use WD Lifeguard to change the SATA interface to SATA 150. It should work exactly as I did with Hitachi Tool.
The 100Gb limitation is not true. I had a 500gb drive in my D900K for a while, so it is capable of handling two 500gb drives, and possibly larger ones.


K-TRON

 

Step 1-So... To change interface back to 150.. I need to get WD Lifeguard tools. Does this file I download (WD Lifeguard) specifically to change speed to 150 or do I have to find the right wd ligeguard tool file?

Step 2-Then burn that to a cd???

Step-3- I need to find a system where I can plug HD in?? (The only way to change speed is actually opening HD on a computer that can read them???)

Step 4- How excatly does it work... you boot up HD on a computer... does it have to have windows installed on it??? Or how do I use the wd lifeguard cd with the sata 300 drive?

I kind of get it, but sorta a few blanks im confused on. Please help
Thanks for the adivce k-tron
Jess

 

You need a system which can read SATA 300 harddrives in order to change the SATA speed on your WD harddrive. That means you need another laptop or a desktop capable of reading SATA 300 harddrives.

You download a copy of WD Lifeguard, or Hitachi Tool, and than you burn a Image of the disc with NERO.
Than install the WD harddrive in the system which can read it.
Than install the cd and boot off of it.
You will have to navigate through the program, and there should be an option to set the SATA speed.
If WD Lifeguard does not have it, you can use Hitachi Tool.
Than you are prompted to save changes, enable Speed spectrum, and than exit the utility.
Install the harddrive in your M7700 and your all set

Ask any questions you have, we are here to help,

K-TRON

 

I called WD support line and talk to a tech. He told me I could change speed but putting jumper on 3&4 and it would change speed to 150 instead of 300. I stuck the jumper on 3&4 but I still have same problems as before setting jumpers. I downloaded WD Lifeguard tools for dos & cd. It was a zip file... I burned that zip file as image to dvd rw memorex disk. Not sure if I was supposed to unzip file before burning as image b/c i tried unzipping and saw what was in folder but it didnt give me file to burn, just that whole single zip folder).
Does this not work?? How can you tell in your bios if your pc reads hd. I set boot priority to boot cd first. It says in boot sequence 3 pci scsi: sata378 tx2 plus D0 (Is this the new HD?)

I got nothing... And it keeps saying my windows disk is unreadable... I have xp Home edition upgrade version 2002...
Did I burn disk wrong?? Does it have to be cdrw no dvdrw.. Im struggling
thanks
Jess

 

Wd lifeguard is not going to work then. Try Hitachi Feature Tool, it worked for me. It should work on your drive too.
http://www.hitachigst.com/hdd/support/download.htm#FeatureTool
You can download the CD image, and make a bootable CD off of it through Nero

I hope it reads your drive, it should just be a basic parameters editor so it should work on any manufacturers drive

K-TRON

 

I got the WD lifeguard to work... It opens.. I tried to partion with only 137GB partion and tried to load windows xp disc didnt work.. then tried with all 320 GB partion and tried to reboot and load xp disk and it still didnt work. Not sure what Im doing wrong... the lifeguard reads the Hd and tells me to reboot pc and put in os disk... when I try to it says there's some errors and then says try different disc???

 

My laptop is a D900T. I bought the computer in 2004. Do I need to update Bios?? Where does it tell me Bios version and what bios should I be using. On boot up it says bios version 1.00.0.23

 

You shouldnt need to update the bios to recognize a 320gb drive.

So you were able to switch the drive into SATA 150 mode correct?
Please note that in order to install Windows XP, you need to install the SATA drivers in order for the harddrive to be recognized.
There are two ways to do this,
1) you need to slipstream the SATA driver into the XP installation disc with ntune
or
2) download the SATA drivers and install them on a floppy disc. When you put the XP disc into your laptop a little note will come up at the bottom saying "press F6 if you need to load SATA or SCSI drivers"
Press F6
Later on in the install a window will appear asking you to load the SATA driver. You press "S" and "Enter" and than the driver has been loaded.
Than XP will see your harddrive there and you can install Windows.

Please note you need a Windows certified floppy drive to do this. The only manufacturers are TEAC, MITSUMI, and Smartdisc.
The floppy drive which should have come with your laptop has a Mitsumi floppy drive in it, so it works.

If you do not load the SATA driver, windows will not find your harddrive.

K-TRON

 

I am not sure if it changed the speed to 150. I just put jumper on HD and used WD Lifeguard tools and partion HD for 320 GB. The jumper is supposed to make HD 150.

So I need Sata drivers. I dont have a hard disc. A few years ago i had to re install windows and my Respawn factory Image disc would not work.. So they made me download "Alienware Utility driver for windows xp" and I remember I had to try using it somewhere in the installation of windows xp. But I dont think this is the "Sata drivers". Where do I get the drivers from?? Do I have to order them from somewhere or can I download and burn to hard disc??
Let me know.
Thanks K tron.
"Are there different sata drivers you use?? Like does my WD scorpio sata II Hd need its own special sata driver?? Or is there only "Sata Driver that I need"
Trulife

 

Also when trying to boot up to Windows xp disc it says Press any key to boot from cd.....NTLDR is missing. What that mean??

 

okay... I used that windows utility disc alienware had me download... I pressed f6 and it did a few things... Now Windows shows a list of existing partitions and unpartitioned space on pc...
My HD is 320GB it shows 305243 MB disk 0 at Id 0 on bus 0 on U1Sata [MBR]
It shows C artition1 (DRV1_VOL1) [NTFS}
I press enter for partition1

Then it gives me 3 choices..

Format the partition using the ntfs file system quick
Format the partition using the ntfs file system
or
Leave the current file system intact <no Changes>
What do I pick???
I chose leave current file system..
It then made me wait until files were copied or something... once it got to 100 percent it told me to take out hard disck from a drive and reboot... so I rebooted.. and now it reloaded to windows xp install disc...
Didnt work... took me to blue screen and has been shutdown to prevent damage "page_fault_in_nonpaged_area" and some technical info.

now I just rebooted and it loaded to xp blue screen and says its installing windows... and it will take 37 minutes... It has a pop up that says Windows logo testing to verify its compatibility with windows xp and to stop installation now. Im gonna continue.. This laptop is a wreck.