HP pavillion does not recognise new Sata hard drive

hi folks.

i am upgrading the western digital hard drive on my hp dv2058ea to a western digital 250gb drive. when i put in the first hp recovery disc the screen says hard disc not found, recovery console cannot continue. is this a driver issue and how can i make it right?

thanks in advance for any replies.

 

is it Windows XP or Vista?

if it is XP, go to the bios and disabled AHCI

 

Maybe you need to create a partition on the hard drive

 

Does the BIOS see the HDD and report the model number and size? If not, put your old HDD back in and check that it is still detected OK and works. There's a small possibility that the connector is not seated properly.

John

 

hi guys,
yes i should have said it's windows xp sp2 on the recovery discs,
well the bios does not see the hard drive and report the model number, when i put back the original hard drive bios does not see it and report it's model number either, although windows boots and functions as normal. the only difference between the drives as far as bios settings are concerned is that in the boot order menu with the original hard drive in place it shows as notebook hard drive, also on the drive test page it shows as notebook hard drive, with the new one in on the drive test page when i try to test the drive it says 'no ide device'
unable to try the partition suggestion as the new drive is not being recognised,
there is no option in bios to disable AHCI, although i tried disableing sata support but this made no difference at all,
what next folks?
and thanks for those quick replies,
tony

 

could you try the new hard drive on other computer?
is there any light blinking on hdd indicator ?
if none, maybe, just maybe its a broken one.

 

good suggestion, though i have tried two new hard drives in the laptop with the same results, the western digital and also a hitachi travelstar

 

Another thought is to boot off a Linux Live CD (eg Ubuntu) and see if that sees the HDD.

There's also the possibility that the HDD is SATA-II and is confusing the chipset. What is the chipset? See this WD FAQ. You can make a jumper to set the HDD to SATA-1.

It would be unusual (but not unknown) for HP to have limited the HDD support in the BIOS which is like winding the clock back 15 years.

John

 

it's the Mobile Intel 945GM Express Chipset Family

 

just out of curiosity,
is your harddrive actually connected into your laptop?
A lot of Hp laptops have a interposer, which fits over the SATA male drive connector (on the harddrive) and than plugs into some proprietary port on the HP motherboard.
Without this interposer, the harddrive will not get power and will not be seen by the system.

Also if you are installing XP, you need to either slipstream the SATA drivers into the Windows installation discs, or you need to have a bootable USB floppy drive, with a bootable floppy containing the appropriate sata drivers.
Without these, windows xp cannot see the harddrive.

K-TRON

 

hi k-tron
yes the hard drive is identical to the original other than that it's a 250gb, i did take off the pin adapter from the original and fit it on the new drive.
i have only the hp recovery discs, not a normal xp disc, not sure if i can slipstream with just the recovery discs.
i downlaoded the latest sata driver from hp website and installed it onto a floppy, however this didn't work, it said no bootable disc found, how do i create a bootable floppy containing the drivers? i think this may be the solution if i can create this floppy.
cheers

 

To make a bootable floppy, you need to get a usb floppy drive, and than you need to insert a floppy.
You need to format the floppy with this option checked: "Create MS-DOS startup disc"
Than it will format the floppy
Than simply copy the driver onto the floppy and than thats it.

Plug the usb floppy into your hp, and select in the Bios this boot order:
1) optical drive
2) usb floppy drive
3) harddrive

When the recovery discs start to load windows, on the lower blue bar windows will say: "press F6 to load Sata/SCSI drivers"
Press F6
When the system loads the files, it will prompt you to select the file from the floppy drive. (I think its enter or the "s" key)
Than windows will access the floppy drive and load the driver. When thats done, windows will be able to see the harddrive, and than from there you can format the drive and install the operating system.

It is very strange that your system Bios does not recognize the harddrive. Its almost like their is a system error, and it cannot read the harddrive.
You may want to update the system Bios to see if a new revision will let you see the harddrives installed.

K-TRON

 

k-tron

i had indeed updated the bios on the motherboard to the latest from hp, still no different in showing the hard drives, original one still works as normal.

i followed your steps, created the bootable floppy and changed the boot order, however since the recovery discs boot ffirst from the optical drive it still shows no hard drive found, windows doesn't load or give me the chance to do the f6 option. it seems to me that perhaps the hp recovery discs only work with the original hard drive, what do you think?

furthermore, i found another xp disc that came with my dell desktop, when i use this disc windows starts to load and i get the f6 option to load the sata drivers from floppy which seems to work fine, however the installation later fails with a stop error, i'm assuming this is becuse it will only work with the dell pc, however would this at least indicate that the new hard drive is indeed somehow now being recognised?

i think my only option now is to purchase an xp with sp2 oem disc and try that,
cheers

 

well here's the update,

i have updated the bios to hp's latest,
i have purchased a new xp with sp3 disc
windows set up runs and asks for the sata drivers which i have on floppy, they seem to instal ok and set up continues,
at the end of set up it says windows will now instal on your computer, press enter to continue, when i press enter it says no hard disc detected press f3 to finish.

the new hard disc does not show in bios.
i have loaded the western digital set up and diagnostic programme onto floppys but niether one can find a hard disc.

i have tried this with two brand new hard discs now (the other a hitachi travelstar) with the same results, no disc found. the western digital is identical in every way to the original that came with the laptop, other than it's 250gb instead of 120 gb.

is it possible that on some hp laptops it's impossible to upgrade the hard disc?

cheers

 

Wow, it didnt work . There is something definitely wrong if the system is not finding the harddrives. I dont know what it can be, other than the motherboard. You bought a new harddrive, and a new operatng system and still problems. I really dont know what to say. Hopefully someone else can chime in.

K-TRON

 

I wonder what would happen if the old HDD is cloned onto the new HDD using a USB enclosure?

If the bigger HDD still won't boot then I suspect there is a deliberate limitation in the BIOS since the chipset itself should have no problem with 320GB (I have used a 320GB HDD with the Intel 945GMS chipset in the Toshiba R500).

John

 

yes cloning is an option to try, i decided a new xp installation would be best all round since it wont have all the junk that comes with the hp discs, i'll spend some more hours on this today after work and report back,
thanks guys

 

latest update

i got a usb external hard drive enclosure and put the new 250 gb inside and ran the laptop with the original hard disc. windows recognised the new hard drive but it needed to be initialised and partioned which i have done and it now shows as new volume H and the status is healthy.

this proves at least there is no fault with the hard drive

however when putting the new hard drive back inside the laptop, once again windows goes through the set up procedures then when it asks me to press enter to instal windows still says no hard drive found.

i'm totally at a loss now having spent days on this, the original hard drive is identical in every way apart from the size ie 250gb instead of 120gb, they are both western digital, both sata not sata2.

help

 

I think the problem is your motherboard. For some reason it is not scanning any of the drives.
When you go into the Bios of the system, does it recognize the optical drives?
Or are they imaginary too?
If both are imaginary, maybe the southbridge overheated and the harddrive controller fried.

K-TRON

 

yes the bios recognises the optical drives,

however i believe the solution to this problem has been found.
i managed to chat online for an hour with karl from hp support, and he has come to the conclusion that the dv2000 series has a maximum upgrade potential of only 160gb, and that's why the new western digital is not being recognised. i will purchase a 160 gb tomorrow and will post my results.

meantime thanks to all those who kindly offered suggestions,

tony

 

thats crazy, I have never heard of any recent laptops, especially ones with the Serial ATA interface, which limit the harddrive upgrade capacity.
If a 160gb drive works in your system, than the limitation must be set by HP in the bios. If thats the case, I will have to make a mental note of this limitation, cause if someone else asks, it would be terrible for them to have to go through all of the testing you had to.

Good luck,
I hope the 160gb drive works for you

K-TRON

 

Success at last folks!

it turns out that karl from hp support was right, i put the 160gb hitachi in and using nlite created a slipstream cd that included the sata drivers. (the slipstream cd did not work on the 250 gb drives) i guess the maximum upgrade must indeed be limited in either the bios or the motherboard, anyway i now have windows installed on my new hard drive. furthermore i got a sata external usb hard drive enclosure at a great price into which i can put the 250 gb western digital for portable storage.

next job,,,, i've not got a record of my belkin wireless router wpa encryption key, laptop sees my network but need to enter they key again, i'm sure i can resolve this in google,

thanks for the assistance folks, kept me sane during this, and hopefully it will be easier for someone else should this issue i've had crop up again.

tony

 

shame it got limitation for 160GB

 

yes indeed

 

wow,
I cant believe HP would limit the Bios like that.
Well I am glad you are up and running again.

I do not know the answer to your wireless problems, but you can try posting in the networking thread, and see if you get any good answers.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/forumdisplay.php?f=28

K-TRON

 

Hi there, thanks for figuring out all this stuff, I have an HP Pavilion dv6000 and after reading this thread, I made sure my new HDD wasn't anything more than 160G.
But, still after inserting the new HDD (dfferent brand: new western digital 160G instead of the old Samsung 120G, both sata and 5400 rpm and 2.5inch). I also got the error No harddisk found when using the recovery dvds. First I thought the disks still needed something from the original HDD, but then I also saw the BIOS didnt recognise it (couldn't run a harddisk test). I started to wonder whether the HDD reallly had to be the same as the original one.

Luckily I just bought a USB-Sata adapter which I want to use to see if I can get any data from the bad Samsung disk. But I couldnt connect the adapter to the old Samsung, the plugs were different! The Samsung had very "high" "golden" connectors, whichwould never fit in the much thinner almost flat USB-Sata adapter plugs. But wait: with the new WD the plugs did fit!

After investigating I found out that that's the reason why the new HDDwasn't recognised, not even by the BIOS: the "golden" connectors of the new HDD were not fitting into the laptop connectors, they were sort-of just laying on top!

The post by K-tron on the first page of this thread about the "HP laptops have a interposer" made me look closer at the old Samsung. I found out there *is* one, and you can just pull off the interposer and put it on the new WD. That did the trick! The connectors now do fit in the laptop connectors. The disk was recognised and recovery could proceed!

I actually even wonder if maybe the 160G limit is not really the limit... (even though the hp guys says so; though I did find on some site that that 160G is the limit, but it's not an HP site. And if that site is true, 200G 4000rpm would also fit!). But I guess I'll never know, I won't buy another HD for this laptop anymore, it'll be too old if ever this new WD disk dies on me.

Hope this solves something for somebody at least!