Tecra M8 Hard Drive Recognition Problems

I just got a Tecra M8 for work. The one we got came with Vista Business, but we need to install 2003 Server on it.

However, NO Windows OS other than the Vista Recovery DVD I burnt will recognize the hard drive.

Along with the M8 I bought an 80GB 7200RPM drive. I swapped the drive, booted from the 2k3 CD, and when it came up it said it could not see any hard drive connected to the machine.

So it being a brand new drive I figured it may be having issues seeing it since it's never been partitioned. So I connect it to an external enclosure, plug it into my desktop, format a 20GB partition in NTFS, and try again.

Still, won't read the hard drive. So I put the original HDD back in the machine, booted again, and again, wouldn't see the hard drive.

So at this point I grab an old 2000 CD just to see what it does. No HDD. I scrounge up an XP SP2 disc and try that, no hard drive. The ONLY OS that will detect EITHER hard drive is the Vista Recovery Disc I burnt.

Now, this laptop is available with either XP or Vista out of the box, and I highly doubt the hardware between them is the slightest bit different. I entered the exact model number at Toshiba's site and it came back with XP drivers, so there is absolutely no reason whatsoever for, at the very least, the XP disc detecting a hard drive.

The fact that it's a SATA HDD is the only possible explanation I can think of, but again, XP SP2 still should have had no problems detecting a SATA drive, so I'm really clueless about why everything but the Vista Recovery disc refuses to work.

Any idea would be greatly appreciated.

 

Just a thought..see if the bios recognizes it. I know I have forgotten to put the pin connector adapter on the IDE drives once or twice but not sure yours needs an adaptor.

 

The BIOS sees both hard drives perfectly fine, reports the serial number for both and everything.

Without touching the hard drive configuration, I can pop in a 2000/2003/XP SP2 disc and boot it up and every one will say that there is no hard drive connected, and then pop in the Vista restore DVD I created and it'll see the drive just fine.

 

In the past I have installed 2003 Small Business Server on a SATA drive with absolutely no issues, not to mention countless times with XP, so it would seem to be more of a SATA chipset related thing more than just the fact that it's SATA.

 

So I just got off the phone after 1.5hrs of "tech support" from Toshiba. After being given an incorrect driver by one of them and the run-around to Microsoft customer service by another, I talked to a manager and eventually confirmed that, for now, the Tecra M8 doesn't support the installation of any OS other than Vista.

You can go to the Toshiba support page and look at the downloads for the Tecra M8-S8011 and see all the XP drivers you need... except a SATA driver needed to allow any non-Vista OS to see the hard disk. Brilliant! Way to go Toshiba.

I knew we should've gotten a Thinkpad. *sigh*

 

You Do know they pay these console-pushing, nonsense-babbling monkeys diddly squat these days eh? Hence why you can barely find competent ones unless you are a major corporate customer - in which case you get a competent tech. right away w/o waiting in queue

Check this out:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=156311


- Jordan