Help installing second hard drive on dv9000... PLEASE!!!

Starting to get a little scared about what I am reading on these boards about installing a second hard drive on my dv9000...

Got the mounting bracket, got a second SATA drive... It's not working.

System starts up, and gets blank screen after the BIOS. Just sits there. The BIOS also takes longer to get through.

I have read a couple of other posts on this board with no solutions to this problem as of yet...

Any ideas? Anyone?

 

are you running the Latest BIOS?

Also what SATA drive is it?

 

Latest BIOS F3.D

Drive is a Western Digital WD3200BEVT.

It's an SATA-2 drive, but they're supposed to be backwards compatible with SATA. Also, I have tried putting the drive in the first bay, and the system recognizes it there (it goes right past the BIOS screen, and says "No Operating System Found").

So at least it is detecting the drive in bay 1...

I have a feeling this just isn't going to work. And there's also no support on the Western Digital site for some reason for this drive!

 

It should work, that drive has worked for other users

Are you sure its installed properly on both the HD caddy and HD compartment?

Service manual is here if you need reference

http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c01311536.pdf

 

Thanks. Yeah, I actually swapped the HD connectors, the one I bought on Ebay is now running on my old drive with no problems, so I have ruled out the connector being a problem.

One post I read somewhere I think said something about ... the drive is formatted to read under an SATA-2 standard, and that I need to somehow get it reformatted with an SATA OS.

Doesn't sound like that would be it but anything is worth a try.

Also, what other users have got this drive to work? Because I read a specific post that specifically says a user who was not able to get it to work, actually RETURNED the drive and had to get another.

Unfortunately, search is not working that well right now, so it is hard to check

 

they are currently trying to fix the search database

Try doing this for the meantime

-Unplug AC power and take out the battery pack

-Hold on to the power button for 30 sec or more (to clear out cmos settings)

-Try turning it on again with only AC power

 

OK, I tried the CMOS clear method and it did not do anything.

I have determined that the drives will only work if switched around. If I put the new 320 GB in the first bay and the old drive in the second, that is the only way I can get it to work.

It's such a pain, because I have had to reinstall Vista on the new 320 GB, and now I will have to copy all my files from the old drive to the new one.

But how do I give myself permission to access the entire old drive in Vista?

Interestingly, too, when I boot on Vista on the new drive, with the old one in bay two, I get the new drive as C, the DVD drive shows up as D, and the old drive in the second bay shows up as E. That's weird.

I wish there was an easier solution, but it looks like it might be a full reinstall...

Unless... I put the new drive in bay one, and the old one in bay two, and then tell the MBR to load the OS off the drive in bay two (the old one). Would that work? How do I tell the boot manager to do this?

Thanks!

 

Yes that would work but you still need to a vista install on the new drive though.. then edit the boot file from there. You need a third party program for Vista, unlike XP you could edit it in msconfig. I think the program was called EasyBCD(sorry the search function is shot)

Alternatively if you have a external USB enclosure, you can just clone the drive

 

I have installed Vista onto the new drive.
Now how would I tell Boot Manager there to point to my old drive (which is now reported as E: in Vista) to load the OS from?
And would doing so make that drive (the old one, now in bay two) show up as C: in Vista?

Failing this method... I would like to just copy my pertinent files from my old drive to the new one, but how do I gain permissions when the old drive is in bay two and is now drive E:?

 

Why don't you just set the boot device to be the second hard drive. That would fix the whole you don't want to have to reinstall Vista and copy all your files over. There should be an option inside of the BIOS that will let you specify which device you want to boot from.

Let me know what happens.

 

good idea, totally overlooked that.

OP: Go to your BIOS and set you boot priority to the 2nd bay drive

 

I considered this possibility... I checked the BIOS, I have the F.3D version, and as far as I can tell, there's no option to select which drive to prioritize, it's either, the SATA Controller, or all the other options (CD, USB, etc.)

Still open to other ideas...

I wonder if there is a way to hack the SATA controller, possibly if it has a BIOS of its own, and force IT, directly, to prioritize...

 

Theres one solution that will definately work.

You just need to buy an External USB SATA enclosure for $20 or less and put your new drive in there. Then use Acronis true image (free) to clone your current drive into the new drive through USB.

After its cloned, you can swap the drives and format the old drive

 

Yeah, I could just clone the old drive somehow, either by your suggested method, or backing it up and then restoring it... I appreciate your response.

I think I am going to have to more or less give up on making this work as I had hoped... The old drive will just have to be relegated to the second bay.

Maybe it is a good opportunity though, to do a fresh non-bloatware install of Vista. I've been wanting to do that since I bought this laptop, but never got around to it. I want to get rid of all the registry crap and drivers I have installed over the years. So, maybe there is a silver lining to all this.

On another note, if I do go this route, and do a fresh Vista install, which drivers are the best for the GeForce GO 6150's lately? The latest stable ones I am running are the 101.70 Tweakforce / MobileForce version. I just want to avoid doing several installs and uninstalls of drivers to keep the system uncluttered.

 

A clean install is always a good choice, ive never regretted doing a clean install. It usually takes me 2-3 hours to install it and put my settings back like it was

well test out different drivers now with your current system. so when you do a clean install on your new HD you know which gpu drivers to use

Its what i did anyway. Bloated the crap out of my system just before i did a clean install

 

I just experienced the exact problem!

I bought a new WD3200BEVT from Fry's and installed it correctly into my HP dv9010us laptop. I am pretty sure I did it correctly as I am an electrical engineer.

I tried with both BIOSes: F.1A and F.3D but had no luck.

My observations
==============
1. Computer won't boot up if both drives are plugged in.

2. If the new drive is removed, I can go into the BIOS and proceed to perform a drive SMART test.

On the other hand, if both drives are plugged in, the BIOS shows 2 drive. However, it will _hang_ when you proceed to perform a SMART test on, say, the first drive.

I am planning to return the new hard drive tomorrow.

 

Unfortunately, my sense is that it is not the drive. It might be the fact that it is SATA-2 that is throwing the HP for a loop. If you can return it, power to you... I bought from a non-refundable source.

What I did as a workaround, to boot off my original drive in the second bay, was installed a master boot record on the new WD drive in bay, and had it point to the second drive (the old one) as the C: partition, and once it booted up in Vista, I forced drive one (the new one) to be seen as drive D by the OS. Works fine.

If you exchange for another 320 gigger of another brand, let us know what happens. I'm waiting with baited breath.

 

mark2000:

I agree that the problem is caused by my notebook.

I intentionally buy from Fry's while paying a bit of premium (a retailer in Silicon Valley) because of their refund policy. They let me return two laptops that I bought simply because I did not like them.

Btw, I wanted my 2nd drive to run Linux (Fedora). I think my options are:

A) Buy a 2nd WD3200BEVT from Fry's. Hopefully they work well together with my dv9010us.

B) Return the drive and wait to buy two 500 GB drives in a few months. Again, hopefully the 2 drives work well together.

I am thinking of choosing option B.

Exchanging the 320 GB is not an option right now since the WD3200BEVT is all they have at 320 GB.

 

Something I used once on my old DV8000 series laptop when I upgraded my C drive to a 7200rpm drive, because I didn't need to redo another clean install at the time....I just downloaded Seagate Seatools (I do believe) and burn it to CD and then I have the old C drive in still, then pop the new C drive in the second bay (removed the old D hdd temporarily from that second bay)....so then boot in to BIOS, set to boot from CD and it loads Seatools which you can then copy the exact image off the old C drive on to the new one.....then put the new C drive in to the first bay and the old D drive back where it belonged. As long as the new drive is the same size or bigger.

 

FYI, I just returned the WD3200BEVT drive for a full refund

I am still looking forward to buying two 500 GB drives in a few months. Will be cloning the WinXP over, probably using Acronis (i.e., connecting the new drive to a SATA-to-USB adapter) as suggested before.

 

Actually, one of the blessings of all of this, was a chance for me to finally do the non-bloatware install of my OS, which was nice, and reorganize how I manage my files. It's been about a week project, but it was an excuse to do it, and I have no regrets. Maybe somethign to consider on your next HD upgrade!

 

Hi mark2000.

How did you "do the non-bloatware install"? Did you use the recovery disc or did you use a retail version of XP/Vista?

Thanks,
Teich

 

I've encountered the same issue and symptoms with a Seagate 320gb, model ST9320320AS.

I also suspect it's a SATA2 problem. Someone else on the forums said they got it to work by placing a jumper on the back pins. Those pins will force the drive to operate in SATA1 mode. Unfortunately, I can't find docs on which pins to bridge. If someone knows, please post.

 

Ok, this seems to be it:

http://www.seagate.com/images/support/en/us/cuda_sata_block.gif

It's the two pins furthest from the sata connector.

 

Well, worked like a charm! One little jumper put on, and the the laptop boots up without delay. It's now formatted and working very well. For reference, my hp is a DV9417ca.

 

Since the NVIDIA graphics chip died in my dv9010us, which is a well-known problem for NVIDIA, I had to send the laptop back to HP for a free repair.

When I got the laptop back, I bought two WD3200BEVTs from Amazon for $86 each After restoring the old drive to the factory-default state, I cloned the old drive to the new drive using Acronis.

It is nice to walk around with a laptop that has over 600 GB of storage. I have had no problems so far.

Teich

 

SATA OS????? What a crock! There's no such thing. That person really didn't know what they were saying. I have a dv9819wm that had the same issue in which I was running identical drives in both bays (to avoid any compatibility issues) - 2 250Gb Seagate SATA II's. Here's a copy of a post I just placed elsewhere that will help you to resolve your issue PERMANENTLY, read on:

Something that I finally (After months of working on the problem of my secondary drive not being seen, or worse, being seen for a short period of time and then *POOF* disappearing from everywhere, BIOS Windows, everything! How FRUSTRATING!!!! And HP tech support sucks!! Sending it into them resolved nothing, they simply said it works and returned it to me. I work on computers for a living and figured they were smoking something, to my dismay, I was right.

I finally found the cause in a whitepaper one day while researching this problem. The problem was that the second drive bay cannot utilize a drive running at 3 G/sec., it HAS TO BE clipped to 1.5 G/Sec. You can check with you drive manufacturer or simply look at the top of the drive for a jumper setting, but you WILL need a small jumper designed for laptop drives, others will not work safely. Once I clipped the drive to the slower speed, it has been running like a champ ever since (at least the last three months or so). THANKS FOR NO HELP HP!!!!!! Why they would design a laptop that could use two drives and then not give both interfaces the same connection speed is beyond me.

Johnny, didn't see your revelatory post saying the same thing. Glad to know others have the answers too!!!


HP dv9819wm
4Gb RAM
2- 250Gb HDD
Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit

 

I am also seem to be having this same problem, I think. How did you bridge the so-called jumpers? I would like to try it because I bought a WESTERN DIGITAL SCORPIO BLACK 160GB 7200RPM SATA/300 16MB

 

This is interesting, since I have used identical SATA2 drives, both 320Gig, and currently 500Gig in my DV9500T with no jumpers, and no problems. this doesn't seam to me a consistant problem.
Hopefuly for those who have the problem, the above fix will work.