hard drive not detected

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simoesf

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I'm trying to install a new hard drive in an old system. The bios is not detecting the hardware. I tried every single jumper configuration that the manufacterer suggested as well as enabling auto detect in the bios. Nothing seems to work. The bios will not reckognize. Does anyone have any other suggestions?
 
i think your BIOS may not recognise it no matter what you try. can you tell me what is your motherboard make/ model?
 
Since it is an older computer, your new hard drive may be too big and the BIOS may not see it due to its immensely large size. Do you have Windows 95 or 98? They can only see a hard drive that is so big. I forget what the maximum is, but it's not much. I want to say 32 gigs. Here is a loophole you can try to fool your computer with, although it is a pain in the ass. Partition the hard drive, with Fdisk, into lots and lots of small partitions. Use your remaining drive letters (Probably E-Z) and make lots of partitions that are small. The BIOS will not see one BIG partition, but will see several SMALL partitions.
 
Most new hard drives come with a disk that has translation software on them. Installing this software on the drive will enable you to get around this large drive limitation on the older PC's and OS's.
-Target
 
Something that I've done more times than I care to think about, is hooking the IDE cable up backwards. Make sure that the side that is colored on the cable is closest to the hard drive power supply.
 
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