Old laptop, new hard drive

carritts · #1 28th Sep 2007, 11:56

Hi, brand new to site. Hard drive crapped out on my daughters old Dell Latitude Laptop. Replaced with a new one, but not recognised in bios and will not boot up. Have tried a few drives, but the only one that works is from an identical machine. Which coincidently won't recognise the other drives either. There is nothing special I can see about the drive that works compared to the ones that won't. Any ideas?

**alex** · #2 28th Sep 2007, 13:21

This could be a bios check installed by Dell to only let the laptop accept certain hdd's.

I can believe this actually, its Dell afterall.

But some other things to check (but before doing any of them, and as you don't state what size hdd was in the lappy originally and what size the new one is, check with Dell that the bios can install this new, larger capacity?, hdd):

1) Are the jumper settings on the new hdd correct?
2) Also check the bios settings for LBA enabled on the hdd. (Bios dependent)

3) If those two don't work check to see if there is a legacy controller in the bios, if there is, and it's enabled, disable it.

4) Set the bios to boot from the optical drive as well. If it won't it could mean that the boot is initially perfomed through a rom memory module. If thats the case then remove all power and batteries to reset the bios.

5) If none of those work, then I think it's 'contacting Dell' time.

BUT if you still have the unit under warranty, I would seriously consider contacting Dell first, before trying anything. They may be able to assist.

carritts · #3 29th Sep 2007, 00:32

Many thanks for the quick response. The original hard drive size was 10GB. The one that works from a very similar machine is 20GB. I have tried other 20GB & 40GB drives and these do not work.

1 Jumper settings are correct
2. I don't know what this means and could find no reference to it in the setup screen.
3. Again, I could not find anything in the BIOS relating to a legacy controller.
4. Tried booting from CD and this works. I still unplugged the battery, but no change.
5. I guess I could contact Dell, but the machine is approx 6 years old.

Thanks again for the help.

**alex** · #4 29th Sep 2007, 00:43

I assume the drive you're attempting to install is a SATA 2 drive?

If so, it won't work without a bios update judging by the age of the laptop

You'll also need the bios to reflect the legacy controller and the option of LBA in the bios to make use of a SATA 2 drive (and also the increase in capacity).

Hence the bios update.

carritts · #5 29th Sep 2007, 04:32

Thanks again. No it is not a SATA 2 drive. I had the BIOS updated and it made no difference.
I took the laptop to my local PC repair shop this morning and they reckon that I would need to get an almost identical hard drive to make it work.

I still think there must be a way.

When you said earlier to remove the battery. Did you mean the one on the motherboard that maintains date and time etc?