Argh - Computer help!

[I'mVan]

I think that's my cue to go back to they shop tomorrow.

 

[fgarvb1]

You need to go to the maxtor web site! asap and read up or copy some instructions and infro!

 

[fgarvb1]

Good luck!

 

[Weird Harold]

/me cusses and swears

So I plug in the drive, and yes I did remember power too, then turn on the computer. It starts up, checks and recognises the CD drives, then stops. It can't 'see' the new drive, or the old one if the new one is attached (primary or secondary.) What am I doing wrong? Do ya think?

Did you update the drive list in the BIOS?

Your system should have an auto-detect function in the BIOS that will set the drive parameters and show you how big the BIOS thinks it is. If the old drive is still set as the primary drive in the BIOS, the system is trying to read the new drive with the old drives parameters and will exhibit the symptoms you report.

When you do get the BIOS to recognise the new drive, I would recommend that you partition the drive into two or more logical drives with FDISK. For example, I have a 6 GB and a 30GB drive with a 1 meg partition for C: and five GB pations for D: thru I:. That allows me to put graphics/images on one partition, music/sound files on another, programs on a third, and confine most of the fragmentation to the smallest partition so it doesn't take all day to scandisk and defrag.

 

[I'mVan]

Weitrd Harlod, I tried to run the auto detect, but the process simply stalled and never continued or responded to keystrokes.

Assuming you mean 1gb for c:, that makes sense. I'll do something like that - might need 10 or 15 for the porn though . . .

 

[Weird Harold]

Weitrd Harlod, I tried to run the auto detect, but the process simply stalled and never continued or responded to keystrokes.

Assuming you mean 1gb for c:, that makes sense. I'll do something like that - might need 10 or 15 for the porn though . . .

If the auto-detect function doesn't work, then you have jumper problems. Try completely removing the old drive from the system and putting the drive jumper back at the factory default.

Once you have the new drive working, you can start trying to slave the second drive to recover your data.

Yes, I did meant 1GB for drive C:

I should add a warning about partitioning your drive -- Windows assumes that everyone has one humongous drive C: and will try to put everything on the C: partition. Even installing programs on another partition will use up some space on the C: partition. One advantage of partioning is that most viruses that prey on outlook and other common MS aplictions expect them to be on the C: drive and crash when they aren't.

 

[sexy-girl]

[quickie hijack]



Beautiful, sweet, intelligent and computer literate?!

Whadda woman.

[/hijack]

ok i know i said i wouldn't hijack this thread except to help van but lickerish has noticed me ... and i very much like it thank you