Laptop Does Not Recognize Hard Drive.

Hello I have a Dell inspiron 1721 with windows xp that was working fine until it just crashed. I ran the on-board diagnostics that gave me an error stating my hard drive was fried. I changed it to the same kind of hard drive then tried to install windows 7. Once it gets to the part that asks you to choose a location to install it onto, it does not show any hard drives or anything for that matter. I was told that it might be a BIOS issue? If you can help me I would really appreciate it. Thank you very much in advance.

 

Perhaps maybe your SATA controller is fried? Put in a known good drive to test it out.

 

Thanks for a rapid response. I tried with 3 different brand new hard drives and still got nothing. You think it might be a compatibility issue? Any other help would be greatly appreciated. I am leaving for Afghanistan in one week from today and would like to take the laptop with me without having to buy another one. Once again thank you for your help.

 

You tried 3 different branded hard drives and the Windows installer does not see the hard drives? Did you install the F6 SATA drivers? Sometimes the XP setup will not see the hard drives cause they are SATA.

 

Yes i tried 2 hard drives not 3 sorry about typo.The windows installer does not see either one. If i'm not mistaken SATA is the name of the hard drive manufacturer. Its asks me to install a driver im guessing the one for the hard drive, but it did not come with any software or anything like that. I'm not sure how to install F6 SATA drivers. Please explain. Thanks BTW found this and was wondering if it has anything to do with what i need. http://news.softpedia.com/news/Install-Windows-XP-On-SATA-Without-a-Floppy-F6-47807.shtml

 

You need to find out your chipset F6 SATA driver. I believe the 1721 has an AMD chipset if I'm not mistaken. When installed during the process, it install the drivers on the drive and make sure Windows installer will see it.

That link tells you to create a custom XP install with nLite but you still need the XP F6 SATA driver.

 

Yes I know it does in fact have a AMD chipset. Where do I find the XP F6 SATA driver and how do I install it? Please provide as much detail as possible. I have never done this before and therefore don't know much on the topic.One more thing how do you check/update BIOS? I also found the specs for the 1721 hope this helps. http://www.laptopreviewsonline.com/DellLaptops/Inspiron1721/

 

The original post says he's trying to install Windows 7. That shouldn't require a F6 driver for any but the latest controllers.

Let's back up a bit - is the hard drive detected by the BIOS? Depending on the model (I'm not familiar with the Inspiron 1721) there will be a prompt like "Press F2 for Setup" when powering on the system (normally on the screen with the Dell logo). Look and see if the hard drive is detected there (menus vary, but Dell usually puts it on the first system information screen and/or in the "Boot" screen).

If the BIOS doesn't see it, you have some sort of hardware problem. If the BIOS detects it but the Windows installer doesn't, then it is likely (but not definitely) a software issue.

 

Yes it does show it. says "primary hard drive = 250GB HDD". If you would like I can take pictures or make a video to show you anything you need to see to help me resolve this issue. Thanks

 

Oh then in setup, did you try changing the SATA operation between ATA (IDE) and AHCI mode?

 

Alright I don't really know what you mean by all this. SATA, ATA, IDE,ACHI dont know what any of it means. But I was digging around in the Bios menu went to SATA and changed the option from "RAID ON" to "AUTO SELECT HDD" and sure enough it worked so far. I am trying to install windows on it now. Thank you very much for your help

 

I don't really know what you mean by all this. SATA, ATA, IDE,ACHI dont know what any of it means. But I was digging around in the Bios menu went to SATA and changed the option from "RAID ON" to "AUTO SELECT HDD" and sure enough it worked so far. I am trying to install windows on it now. Thank you very much for your help

 

AHCI gives you NCQ (Native Command Queuing) which makes drives perform better by optimizing read/write commands, gives you hot swap capabilities (not really for laptop) and is generally better for newer hardware. IDE (ATA) is really for older hardware, and should only be used if you have an older OS like XP or if AHCI is flaky on your system. In all honesty IDE mode is fine for most people.