The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.

    New HDD Problems.

    Discussion in 'Hardware Components and Aftermarket Upgrades' started by Patere, Jul 13, 2009.

  1. Patere

    Patere Newbie

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    5
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    5
    G'Day

    Recently I bought a new Hitachi 7K320-320 laptop hard drive, I have been able to install it physically but when i go to install Windows XP OS it first said that there were no hard drives found. Now it just stops at a black screen with the white flashing underscore.

    The first problem is strange as the second hard drive is still connected and has always worked so there is at least one hard drive properly installed. Is there something special that has to be done to a new hard drive? Like a button to push or something?

    And i do NOT want to copy my old hard dive onto this new one as my reason for changing was due to hard drive errors and viruses. Sigh viruses.

    Thanks.

    My last reformat did not fix the errors, also im upgrading from a 5400 to a 7200rpm as i was struggling to open some programs I need for university.
     
    Patere, Jul 13, 2009
    #1
  2. sxusteven

    sxusteven Notebook Evangelist

    Reputations:
    33
    Messages:
    550
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    There is no "button" (though I didn't use hitachi) that activates a HDD, they should appear in the BIOS if installed correctly.

    A simple reformat will do?

    Check your BIOS to see if its recognized, and if not, try reinstall it
     
    sxusteven, Jul 13, 2009
    #2
  3. SleepyBum

    SleepyBum Newbie

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    7
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    5
    You probably need the SATA controller drivers for your notebook. You either need a floppy drive with the drivers on it, hit F6 when the Windows install prompts you for additional SCSI/RAID drivers, or you need to slipstream the XP installation with the drivers.

    With SATA, Windows will not find any HDs, if it doesn't have the necessary drivers. Only other work around is to enable in the BIOS to old IDE/legacy compatibility mode, but you'll have a bit to reduced performance, and your BIOS might not have that setting.
     
    SleepyBum, Jul 13, 2009
    #3
  4. davidkneiber

    davidkneiber Notebook Consultant

    Reputations:
    52
    Messages:
    248
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    yup yup yup... also see if it is in the bios.. then change to ide in bios
     
    davidkneiber, Jul 14, 2009
    #4
  5. nacholambre

    nacholambre Notebook Consultant

    Reputations:
    14
    Messages:
    220
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    Maybe you should do a virus scan on your new HDD. Can very well be a trojan preventing you from detecting your HDD. Buy a SATA to USB cable and boot from any PC and scan TODAY!!
     
    nacholambre, Jul 14, 2009
    #5