Maxtor 120gb not detected by bios, please help!

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clearlyunaware

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Hey, i just bought a Maxtor 120gb Diamond +9, i 've got it on the same IDE as a 60gb IBM Deskstar. Bios just doesnt seem able to find it, i also tried powermax and fitness Disc but neither had any luck. I have the IBM set to Master (o) and at the master point on the IDE. The Maxtor i have on slave (1) and at the slave IDE.
I saw that not having SP1 can be an issue, this will proove difficult for me, is getting it likely to solve this?
I wondered if it may be a power issue, i have 300w, with a dvd rom and cd writer, platinum audigy 2, radeon 9600 and 1.4amd. Im running xp Pro.
I have a Elite Group K7S5A, which i was told had a limit of 123gb..
discovered painfully after buying a 200gb, that never worked and i never got the money back for.
Im also wondering about updating the bios, although i'd quite like to avoid it..
any help would be great..
 
first let me tell you that you do not need service pack 1 for winXP to use 120GB. it is only required for hard disk greater than 120GB. by the way you said "prove difficult for me" i know what you are saying, they have patches out for that.

if your BIOS cannot detect the 120GB than winods cannot either. you need to double check if you plugged in the power and data cables in the back of the 120gb. also try all of te jumper settings in the back of the 120GB. also click START button> run and type in diskmgmt.msc and hit OK. do a screenprint and paste your picture to your message. you might need to resize or crop it before you post it
 
ah right.. well i've done the service pack, and your right, no change.. I also updated my bios, and that didnt do a thing either. The only thing different, is now the HD red light is constantly on, and running slow, is that the pc trying to quantify the drive? task manager says system idle process 99%.
The disk management doesnt say much, its just not there.
 
idle at 99% means nothing, thats normal. the constant red light probably means your hard disk is not properly connected. what you need to do is figure out why the hard disk is not n=being detected in BIOS. are you sure you connected the IDE data cable to the hard disk correctly and have set the jumper to "cable select"? maybe the cables are not seated firmly. try reconnecting them firmly back in
 
yea check the jumpers, second drive needs to be on slave, and the system idle process.. well here lemme find a site for ya.. well couldn't find a site but..

"System Idle Process - You cannot end this process from Task Manager. This process is a single thread running on each processor, which has the sole task of accounting for processor time when the system isn"t processing other threads. In Task Manager, expect this process to account for the majority of processor time. "

It basically uses up the clock cycles that your computer isn't using (i think) because the way xp was made there was some kind of problem and to make a work around they just created the system idle process, it in no way effects the use of your computer though.
 
yes, i've realised your right, the only goal is getting it to appear in bios, right?..
i've tried every feasiable combination of jumpers, and swapped power cables, tried it as both primary & slave, and on its own.
the drive doesnt seem to power up at all, would it, or would it need to recieve a power up cmd? im pretty sure its not power related now.. urgh this is such a pain, thanks for your help guys
 
clearlyunaware said:
yes, i've realised your right, the only goal is getting it to appear in bios, right?..
i've tried every feasiable combination of jumpers, and swapped power cables, tried it as both primary & slave, and on its own.
the drive doesnt seem to power up at all, would it, or would it need to recieve a power up cmd? im pretty sure its not power related now.. urgh this is such a pain, thanks for your help guys

Go to http://www.maxtor.com, from there get their powermax utility, put a clean floppy in and let the powermax utility make a bootable diagnostic floppy. Powermax can run re-certification tests on the drive as well as test the drive for failures, and make sure the drive is properly connected.
 
i am certian it has to be your IDE data cable. are you sure it's not plugged in upside down? you should not be able to rock it side-to-side. that can be the most likely explanaition why you have a solid light glowing. the only other conclusion is the hard disk is bad, but i very much doubt it is bad, just not connected right
 
try only conecting the new HD by itself on Master to see if its detected boot to bios
 
i have used powermax, but it doesnt work, as well as a plethora of disk managment/diagnostic tools. POwer max simply doesnt detect the drive, so i cant run any tests.
Yeah, i have been leaning towards the IDE cable, i think im gonna go out and buy a new one now.. its in a snug as they can go, all the connections have locators so they can't go in anyother way.
I have tried having it by itself as master, and it didnt work either..
 
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