Computer Boot up and New SATA Hard Drive

[ultraspoon]

Hey guys, Thanks for taking the time to help me and read this.

I have an XP pro computer, my current Hard drive is connected through IDE and currently set to master, this is noticed in my Bios.

I also have a new hard drive which im using for storage, this is a SATA drive.

Now the problem is, when I just have my IDE drive in, windows boots fine, but when I connect the new SATA drive, after the XP loading screen, my computer freezes, on a black screen and does nothing.

I can get into the bios when the new drive is connected and that is also reconised, and the IDE is set to the main drive.

I have also been messing about with the hirens boot disk to see if i can run some diagnostic test on the new drive. At the menu on the disk it has 3 options, and one of them was boot from harddrive, i tried this, and it worked! So I formatted my SATA harddrive and everything was fine, untill I turned my computer off again and I was back to square one.

Help please, I would like to use my new 500gb drive.

Thanks alot guys.

 

[Remeniz]

Whats your computer specs?

 

[ultraspoon]

Windows XP
Mainboard - MSI K9MM-V (MS-7312)
CPU - AMD Athlon 64, 3200+
Graphics Card - ATI Radeon X800 SE
One primary IDE Hard drive and 1 data SATA drive.
1 GB RAM

Thanks

 

[pepzsoduh]

maybe a motherboard BIOS problem?
whens the last time you updated?

 

[cboucher]

You might need to go into BIOS and enable the appropriate SATA port. SATA doesn't have master/slave settings so you shouldn't need to do anything with your IDE drive. Usually it will say SATA 0, SATA 1, SATA 2, etc... next to the SATA ports on the motherboard. Follow your SATA cable from your HDD to the motherboard to find out which port it is connected to and then enable that port in BIOS. No guarantee that this is the absolute answer to your problem, but it's worth taking a look at.

 

[Teny]

Can you somehow make the new HDD an external to see if it functions correctly?

 

[ultraspoon]

I do not think that I have ever ran an update on my bios but even if i wanted to I cant, I do not have a floppy disk drive, im pretty sure this is not the problem though since I have had this hard drive running on this system before.

Ths hard drive is definatly working because I have taken it round to my friends and tested it on his machine.

Also there is no mention to SATA in my bios at all, the only refrence to my hard drive in the bios, is that is says hard drive boot priortiy, and my IDE is set to the top.

Thanks guys.

 

[Redpill]

Yeah, sounds like your board might need a BIOS update. If you haven't done one before and it isn't something you're confident doing it may well be worth dropping it in to your local PC store and getting them to do it. They should at least offer some form of cover on the flash, should things go pear shaped and could probably do it while you wait. Might be worth running Seatools over the drive as well just to be sure it's OK (Seagate's website).

Edit: Just realised you didn't mention the make of the drive, if it's a Seagate - Seatools. Western Digital - WDDiagnostics and Samsung have a utility called HUtil.

 

[crappybob]

Did you look in your BIOS for sata settings? Some of them are pretty retarded. I have seen dells that have the sata ports turned completly off by default and if they are set to auto and nothing is plugged in it won't boot!! Incredible.

Also your new drive doesn't have anything installed does it? That could hose things up if it is actually trying to boot to the new drive.

 

[ultraspoon]

Ok sorry guys, Ive just started Uni a few weeks back and Ive been swamped with work and forgot I made this post. Just to say thanks for all the replies and a sorry for not answering.

My SATA drive (the one thats not working) is a Hitachi Deskstar 500GB)
I am confident in pulling off a flash bios, I have done it before, my next step will be to go buy a floppy disk drive and give that a shot.
Also there is no reference to SATA at all in my Bios, so that could imply im using a old version, so a upgrade would be my best bet.

Thanks a lot guys