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    Presario C500 drive problems

    Discussion in 'HP' started by Wayne99, Feb 10, 2009.

  1. Wayne99

    Wayne99 Notebook Consultant

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    I've got an old C501NR with 80 GB HD that blue screened and died. Disk check indicated failed sectors. Wont boot into windows. Hp said its dead or dying. So I bought a 160 GB and Windows wont see any of it, neither does Bios. HP said it was too big, would only handle 120 GB so I ordered one of those, same speed/cache as the original. Same issue, its not found by Bios or Windows setup disc.

    Here is the fun part: HP now says I can only use a certain part number
    which seems like total BS to me. Surethe 2 I tried were western digital and they come with Seagates, but so what? So if it isnt THAT that prevents me the puter from seeing the new drives, and that seems highly unlikely, what is it?? The drives are seating and connecting just fine.
     
    Wayne99, Feb 10, 2009
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  2. Wayne99

    Wayne99 Notebook Consultant

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    I put my old, failed HD back in and the BIOS didnt see it either. I guess this may be a hardware problem beyond the problem solving ability of an internet forum, but it sure seems like something is funked other than or in addition to the hard drive
     
    Wayne99, Feb 10, 2009
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  3. Wayne99

    Wayne99 Notebook Consultant

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    I disabled Sata support in BIOS, now it recognizes the new hard drives. I have no idea why, but it works. And a huge thank you the fellow at HP phone support, who not only understood English but quickly solved the problem despite being long out of warranty. At least 2 hours spend over a half dozen visits to chat support left me feeling abused by their inability to even make sense, let alone find the problem. Now what to do with my brand new 6735 that arrives tomorrow to replace this one that works again...
     
    Wayne99, Feb 12, 2009
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  4. Wayne99

    Wayne99 Notebook Consultant

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    Ok, anyone want to take a shot at this question?

    How can Native Sata get enabled without someone manually doing it in the BIOS? I have now decided that was the cause of all my problems. Somehow it switched on when I was working in Windows decrypting a DVD, and it crashed into a blue screen loop. When I did disk check it said #2-07 failure so I assumed drive was shot and got a new one. But I had to disable native sata to install it (that should have been a clue). Then when I flashed the BIOS which reset defaults (apparently), the new drive started the same blue screen loop as the old one, until I disabled native sata. Now that I've disabled native sata the old drive works again too, although it still shows #2-07 failure

    So what caused the sata to enable in the first place??

    Is my old drive bad or or not?
     
    Wayne99, Feb 13, 2009
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