Hard Drive Error

[Leasure]

I have just got a Western Digital 30gb HD off my friend to put in another computer at my house that needs the space. I plug the HD in, and my monitor comes up with a block looking picture. I cant see any BIOS text at all. When unpluging the HD everything loads up right. I thought all HD's were plug and play. Whats going on here?
Thanks.

 

[mammikoura]

try messing around with the jumpers. I'd try making the one originally in the computer the master, and the new 30gb one a slave. Or then just put them both on cable select. (assuming they are using the same IDE cable)

 

[TRDCorolla1]

Yeah, that's a good suggestion^^^^^. Put the newer hard drive on a separate IDE channel too instead of on the primary IDE bus as the original hard drive. Personally, I hate running two hard drives on the same data cable. Then if you do see BIOS load up, double to see if the other hard drive is detected and check boot order.

 

[Leasure]

The HD is on its own cable, and I have messed with the jumbers as well. Master to Cable Select and in between. Nothing seems to work. Once unpluged though the screen will load up.

 

[Raffaz]

Goto western digitals website and download their HDD diagnostics tool (preferably the DOS version) run that on the drive and see what happens. If it comes back with errors then try a low level format (that option should be in the diagnostic tools somewhere). Ya could test the drive on another computer and dee if it works then aswell. If all the above checks out, then it could possibly be down to your power supply, not being able to draw enough power to run the drive.

 

[Leasure]

Goto western digitals website and download their HDD diagnostics tool (preferably the DOS version) run that on the drive and see what happens. If it comes back with errors then try a low level format (that option should be in the diagnostic tools somewhere). Ya could test the drive on another computer and dee if it works then aswell. If all the above checks out, then it could possibly be down to your power supply, not being able to draw enough power to run the drive.

Ok, but how am I suppost to run it if i cant see anything on the monitor when this HD is pluged in?

 

[Raffaz]

Ok, but how am I suppost to run it if i cant see anything on the monitor when this HD is pluged in?

Well hopefully ya computer will boot into DOS automatically from ya CD