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    New HD problems

    Discussion in 'Toshiba' started by jbritt123, Oct 7, 2009.

  1. jbritt123

    jbritt123 Newbie

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    Laptop: Toshiba Qosmio G25-AV513

    Goal: Replacing 250GB boot drive (WD2500BEVS) with larger capacity

    Problem: no clue...

    Symptoms:

    1) When I try to use the recovery disks to reinstall the system, I hit f1 and the "c" to start the ghost recovery... but then the computer just shuts down and reboots
    2) If I hit f2 to quit during the installation to get to the "a:" prompt, I can see the drive as "c:" but it only recognizes 23,893.28MB
    3) If I hit f2 to quit during the installation to get to the "a:" prompt, I can start the ghost recovery by running "q:\base\base.bat". Doing this shows the drive size correctly and the recovery is completed properly however when I reboot, the drive is not recognized by the computer.
    4) If I use another computer to partition/format the drive (NTFS, active) and image the original startup drive onto the new one... reinstall it into the laptop... still get the same result as 1) and 2) above
    5) Tried making a 50GB primary/active partition to install the operating system but same results as above

    Note:

    1) Tried several drives of both SATA I, and SATA II variety...

    samsung hm320ji (sata I)
    travelstar 160gb (sata II)
    western digital 500gb (sata II)

    2) tried playing with the jumpers on the drives

    3) reinstalling the current boot drive (WD2500BEVS) works no probs.

    4) looked in BIOS and see that the drive is properly recognized but there are no settings to change.

    5) BIOS is most recent update

    6) if i use any of the drives mentioned above as my second drive (this laptop has 2 drives), windows has no problem recognized them fully so has to be something with the install. maybe i should try a genuine windows clean install instead of using the recovery disks???

    7) computer works perfectly with the current boot drive.

    ANYONE HAVE ANY IDEAS? stumped... is there a size limit with the hd controller? if so then why didn't the 160gb drive work? maybe limited to sata I drives only up to 250gb??? confused...

    thanks
     
    jbritt123, Oct 7, 2009
    #1
  2. JellyGeo

    JellyGeo Notebook Evangelist

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    jbritt - Wow - Looks like you've covered all of the bases. I don't have a two-drive Toshiba but my Gateway has two drives so I'm somewhat familiar with your setup. Since you have Ghost - I would pull your good drive, and clone it, with Ghost, onto one of your new drives. I always do this in my oldest H-P desktop - as I can unplug the boot drive in it and plug in two SATA drives. The connectors fit fine and there are no power issues as you probably know. Then - I would put the newly cloned drive into the same slot as your known good drive - and attempt to boot from it. I routinely use Acronis, and sometimes Ghost 11, to clone Vista drives because I no longer initialize the factory drive when I get a new laptop - I just clone it onto a spare drive. I hope you are able to resolve this...
     
    JellyGeo, Oct 9, 2009
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