dv9500t second hard drive problem

I just bought a new hp dv9500t laptop. It came with a 160 gig 5400 rpm hard drive. I went and bought another hard drive bracket and a new hitachi 80gb 7200rpm hard drive. When i install the second drive, startup takes forever and then says operating system cant be found. Just wondering if anyone else has had this problem and if so have they solved it. I know the laptop is cabable of dual hard drives because you can order from hp with dual hard drives. So there has to be a way!!!!!

 

well have u looked in the bios and checked if the right hard drive is the one it first boots from?

and which drive is the one you have the OS in? the drive thats above your left hand is the primary drive and thats where the drive for the OS should be installed in.

 

The weird thing is if i put the new drive(80gb 7200rpm) in the hard drive slot 1 and the original 160 in the second it will find both drives in the bios but still wont boot. Then i repair the mbr with my vista disk and it will boot and see both drives but the new mbr is added to the new drive in slot one. But like i said originally with the 160gb drive in slot 1 and new drive in second it takes forever to do anything (including getting into the bios.) When i am in the bios it only see's drive one.

 

I am thinking the problem may be due to the intel matrix storage manager. Also vista is on the originall drive (160gb 5400rpm).

 

check your jumper settings. see that the jumper on the slave is not placed in the master slot. i had that problem once but it was on a pc ide drive.

 

sid1 its SATA not IDE, shudnt have jumpers

 

In that case, the BIOS should have the drives configured correctly. The MBR should point to the drive with Vista in it.

 

I just bought an additional hard drive for my dv9417cl....I asked technical support about this also before I went out to buy the other hard drive...I learned 2 things and they worked for me and my second hard drive is working like a charm....First, of course, you have to buy a mounting bracket from the HP store...I think mine was $39 with S/H it came out to be an even $50..Second, now I don't know why this is, but you must get the same size (capacity wise)hard drive...so if you have a 160gb for the #1 hard drive, get another 160gb hard drive....I know this sounds weird but when I talked with technical support about this, they made sure that I needed the same size drive for it to work properly....The technical support guy wasn't trying to sell me one, he just wanted to make that clear, that what ever hard drive you have for #2, it must have the same capacity as your main hard drive. I went to Newegg and bought a Seagate for $109 (160 gb/5400rpm) and it works great!! You'll only get 150gb out of it...but try that, go get the same capacity size hard drive...when you install it, it won't come up at all....You of course have to go to the computer management and go to your disk management and format it...good luck and let me know what ya get!

 

OK . . . so I want to put a second hard drive on the 9500t . . . have to buy the $39 hardware for about $50 . . . and I have to buy a 160GB hard drive to match the 160GB hard drive tht is in it . . . but . . .

I want to add a 7200 RPM hard drive to my 160GB 5400 RPM hard drive . . . can I do that?

 

Hmmmm.....good question...I wouldn't think it would matter....but I would make sure where ever you get your hard drive, it has a good return policy if it doesn't......I can't believe that HP wants $600 for a second hard drive that you can get the same exact for $100......but if you go that route, it will probably void your warranty, huh? LOL

 

Taught me a lesson . . . if you are gonna buy an HP dv9500t, consider getting the 200GB (100GB x 2) 7200 RPM dual drive upgrade for just $150 more . . . comes with the second bay hardware and with deal 7200 RPM drive speed, rather than with just one, 160GB 5400 RPM hard drive and an empty bay with the need for another $50 for just the hardware.

If I had it to do over again, that is what I would do.

Yes, there is always an external hard drive that will work, but it wouldn't be the primary drive and it is just another piece of hardware to lug around with the 17" notebook.

The dv9500t is an awesome machine . . . very light for a desktop replacement, great functions, great video options, looks awesome, runs well . . . Just wish I would have known about the second hard drive struggles at the outset. I was naively planning to immediately replace the original, cheapest stock 160 GB 5400 RPM hard drive with two 160GB 7200 hard drives.

Not now.

 

OK.....You'll spend $150 for 200 GB (100 X 2) 7200 RPM..... I Paid $50 for the hardware and $109 for another 160 GB 5400.. I'd rather have the space than the speed...Just my opinion.....

 

Certainly another excellent viable option!

 

Strange, I have a Fujitsu 120gig drive in bay #1 and a Seagate 100gig drive in bay #2 and they both work perfectly... I wonder they they said they needed to be the same size?

Jim