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    Dell Inspiron 6400 does not recognize new Seagate Momentus 250GB

    Discussion in 'Dell' started by Erwin12, Apr 16, 2009.

  1. Erwin12

    Erwin12 Newbie

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    As this HD was often recommended in Internet forums as a replacement for the built-in Fujitsu 60GB, I bought it and tried to make it run today.
    Unfortunately, the HD is not recognized. I used Acronis True Image to copy the contents of the old HD onto the new one, but in Bios only the value for the old HD appears (58GB).

    I removed the battery, I tried all kinds of boot-ups to no avail.

    Can somebody give me an advice how to make this HD work? A service technican linked to Dell told me today (but I remain sceptical) that only HDs up to 160GB would work in the Dell Inspiron 6400 I own (German Bios A17 which is the newest one).

    Would be grateful for help

    Erwin
     
    Erwin12, Apr 16, 2009
    #1
  2. John Ratsey

    John Ratsey Moderately inquisitive Super Moderator

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    Perhaps the BIOS does not support 48-bit LBA.

    See the WD knowledge base for various suggested work-arounds.

    John
     
    John Ratsey, Apr 16, 2009
    #2
  3. Erwin12

    Erwin12 Newbie

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    Unfortunately, I could not see any advice for my SATA drive overthere.
    Thanks anyway for your efforts

    Any other idea?

    Erwin


     
    Erwin12, Apr 16, 2009
    #3
  4. K-TRON

    K-TRON Hi, I'm Jimmy Diesel ^_^

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    That is odd, I had a 320gb hitachi 5K320 in my E1505 and it worked perfectly.
    Since you bought a Seagate, have you tried changing the jumper on the harddrive?
    Try both combinations and see if that makes it work

    I noticed that when I do simple changes on my E1505, like swapping memory cards, it may take 5 minutes for the system to think, notice the change and load the BIOS.
    You may want to wait a bit and see if that makes any difference.

    K-TRON
     
    K-TRON, Apr 17, 2009
    #4
  5. Erwin12

    Erwin12 Newbie

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    Thanks for your reply.
    There is no jumper neither on the old nor on the new disk. I also doubled the memory which was - as you wrote - fast recognized by the BIOS. I tried several times to remove the memory chips in order to make the BIOS recognize the new harddisk without any success.

    Best

    ERwin

     
    Erwin12, Apr 17, 2009
    #5
  6. richierich

    richierich Notebook Consultant

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    dead harddrive?
     
    richierich, Apr 17, 2009
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  7. Erwin12

    Erwin12 Newbie

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    not dead at all. When copying the old HD on the new one with True Image, I seem to have copied the MBR too, which now makes my HD believe to have only 60GB instead of 250. So it boots and crashes immediately.

    I have not yet found a way to erase the MBR to get my 250GB HD again.
    Does anybody know how to fix this?

    Would be grateful for any advice

    Erwin

     
    Erwin12, Apr 21, 2009
    #7
  8. Mastershroom

    Mastershroom wat

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    Put in your Windows disk and use the Startup Recovery. It will fix your MBR.
     
    Mastershroom, Apr 21, 2009
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  9. Erwin12

    Erwin12 Newbie

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    I already did it maybe 10 times to no avail

    Erwin

     
    Erwin12, Apr 22, 2009
    #9
  10. Mastershroom

    Mastershroom wat

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    That's odd.

    I know hard drive cloning programs tend to have issues when cloning between two hard drives of different capacities. You may just have to reformat and install Windows from scratch.
     
    Mastershroom, Apr 22, 2009
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  11. K-TRON

    K-TRON Hi, I'm Jimmy Diesel ^_^

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    Have you tried using SEATOOLS in another system to change the firmware of your 250GB drive, to only run in SATA 150 mode?

    K-TRON
     
    K-TRON, Apr 22, 2009
    #11
  12. Erwin12

    Erwin12 Newbie

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    The problem is that even if I reformat the drive, it will show the false capacity of 60GB and not of 250GB.

    How can I correct this?

    Erwin

     
    Erwin12, Apr 22, 2009
    #12