BIOS Wont Recognise HD

[nuvpal]

Hi

i have recently upgraded to a 160gb hard drive from an 80gb, my PC is about 4 yrs old but is in good condition and have upgraded regularily (AMD2000XP+, 512RAM, WinXP). I am trying to put my old 80gb HD into my dads really really old PC but it would not recognise it. my dads PC is: 350mhz processor, 64mb RAM, Win98, has two old HD's an 8gb and a 3gb (from our old old PC), i don't no exactly how old his PC is but i think its more than 10 yrs old.

Anyway, i tried connecting the 80gb to my dads PC to format it and reinstall windows 98 onto it but it would not detect the drive, i tried auto detect in BIOS and everything. this HD somehow got corrupted previously so i thought that was the problem, so i connected it to my PC which recognised it and i formated it on mine and installed win98 blah blah... it all works fine connected to mine but whenever i try to connect it to my dads PC it can never be detected, i've tried everything i can think of but have had no luck

i think maybe the motherboard is too old to detect a new(ish) HD or something but i dont really know. ANY help would be much apreciated as i am stumped

Thanx in advance

 

[diabloII]

check the jumpers?

i had a HDD corrupted too and i couldn't get it to detect, so that might be the problem

 

[nuvpal]

i no this may sound stupid but what are jumpers? the cables? if so then i think they are fine as when i reconect the 2 old hard drives it works fine. i've tried connecting it as a primary or as a slave to the other HD aswell but it still wont boot

 

[frankey]

Did you update the bios?

 

[nuvpal]

no i haven't updated the BIOS, how is this done?

 

[GrimReaper23]

Take the cords out and blow in them that happened to me before also check the jumpers if you don't know what that is then you need to take the hdd look at the back there is the standard power and the cable then there should be like 8 pins there and a little weird thing in them go to the manufactuers website under jumpers make sure it is set to slave or master and then put it back in, tadaa problem fixed

~Grim

 

[frankey]

no i haven't updated the BIOS, how is this done?

You obtain the newest version of bios from the motherboard manufacturer's website. Make sure you are familiar with the procedure as it can destroy your motherboard if not used properly.

 

[nuvpal]

i've tried cleaning the cables and the back of the hard drive and everything, i get what a jumper is now, it is in the right place for master, i have also tried it in the slave position with the orig. HD but it still wont boot.

i doubt this is related to the problem but for some reason on the two orig HD's the slave has two jumpers, 1 in master and 1 in slave, i have no idea why but if i remove either it will not work, i tried the same with the new 1 but it did nothing.

 

[nuvpal]

ok thanks franky, i will try to find out what the motherboard is and try updating the BIOS, i was unaware that that was possible. thanks, i will get back to you with the result

 

[frankey]

This is most likely an outdated bios problem.