Hard drive no longer recognized by computer

[Ginzored]

Ok i was in the process of switch my mothers 80G seagate barracuda hard drive with a 160G seagate barracuda hard drive when both decided not to work with her comp. When i turn it on it says i need to insert boot device, unfortunatly i have no such disk or CD. My other comp doesn't have a floppy drive so i can't make a boot disk with that and the comp that doesn't work probably doesn't boot from the CD drive. To top it all off i have neather a floppy disk or writable CD to work with and no store in town has them in stock. the Comp is a Sony Viao PCV-RZ32G. Can anyone help?

Ginzored wrote:
> Ok i was in the process of switch my mothers 80G seagate barracuda hard
> drive with a 160G seagate barracuda hard drive when both decided not to
> work with her comp. When i turn it on it says i need to insert boot
> device, unfortunatly i have no such disk or CD. My other comp doesn't
> have a floppy drive so i can't make a boot disk with that and the comp
> that doesn't work probably doesn't boot from the CD drive. To top it
> all off i have neather a floppy disk or writable CD to work with and no
> store in town has them in stock. the Comp is a Sony Viao PCV-RZ32G. Can
> anyone help?
>

Things to check:

1) Jumpers on each hard drive. If the drives are on the same ribbon cable,
one drive is Master, the other one Slave. Or both drives set to Cable
Select. If a *single* drive is on a ribbon cable, use the end connector
on the cable, not the middle one.

2) All cables inserted properly, including power to each drive.

3) Verify the boot order in the BIOS Setup screen.
Enter the BIOS and verify that the 80GB drive is being
selected as the boot drive. There should be a menu, which
selects the order of storage devices to boot from.

4) You can use the BIOS screen to verify the hardware connectivity.
The BIOS screen should be listing the 80GB and 160GB drives by part number.
The BIOS screen can be used to verify the drive is detected.

You could try putting everything back, the way it was originally, and
see if that works.

Any time you work on a computer, you need a "backup plan". In other
words, "what will I do, if I break this computer?".

There are various rescue CDs you can prepare, and I use my Knoppix
CD, any time a computer does not have a working OS on it. But that
still requires a working CD drive. I don't think I would let a
computer sit, with a broken CD drive for very long, because that
is an essential ingredient for computer maintenance. If a computer
is completely isolated from the outside world, that makes it a bit
harder to fix.

In any case, the tool of choice at this point, is the BIOS Setup screens.
They'll tell you how much trouble you're in. Check for drive detection
first, then examine the boot order setting.

I tried the documents here, but they don't even tell you which key
to press, to enter the BIOS screen ! Try pressing the F2 function key,
when you first power on the computer.

Paul

[Ginzored]

Originally Posted by Paul

Ginzored wrote:
> Ok i was in the process of switch my mothers 80G seagate barracuda hard
> drive with a 160G seagate barracuda hard drive when both decided not to
> work with her comp. When i turn it on it says i need to insert boot
> device, unfortunatly i have no such disk or CD. My other comp doesn't
> have a floppy drive so i can't make a boot disk with that and the comp
> that doesn't work probably doesn't boot from the CD drive. To top it
> all off i have neather a floppy disk or writable CD to work with and no
> store in town has them in stock. the Comp is a Sony Viao PCV-RZ32G. Can
> anyone help?
>

Things to check:

1) Jumpers on each hard drive. If the drives are on the same ribbon cable,
one drive is Master, the other one Slave. Or both drives set to Cable
Select. If a *single* drive is on a ribbon cable, use the end connector
on the cable, not the middle one.

2) All cables inserted properly, including power to each drive.

3) Verify the boot order in the BIOS Setup screen.
Enter the BIOS and verify that the 80GB drive is being
selected as the boot drive. There should be a menu, which
selects the order of storage devices to boot from.

4) You can use the BIOS screen to verify the hardware connectivity.
The BIOS screen should be listing the 80GB and 160GB drives by part number.
The BIOS screen can be used to verify the drive is detected.

You could try putting everything back, the way it was originally, and
see if that works.

Any time you work on a computer, you need a "backup plan". In other
words, "what will I do, if I break this computer?".

There are various rescue CDs you can prepare, and I use my Knoppix
CD, any time a computer does not have a working OS on it. But that
still requires a working CD drive. I don't think I would let a
computer sit, with a broken CD drive for very long, because that
is an essential ingredient for computer maintenance. If a computer
is completely isolated from the outside world, that makes it a bit
harder to fix.

In any case, the tool of choice at this point, is the BIOS Setup screens.
They'll tell you how much trouble you're in. Check for drive detection
first, then examine the boot order setting.

I tried the documents here, but they don't even tell you which key
to press, to enter the BIOS screen ! Try pressing the F2 function key,
when you first power on the computer.

http://esupport.sony.com/perl/model-...PCVRZ32G&LOC=3

Paul

Ok i wouldn't know what the jumpers on the hard disks look like, and the drives are not listed in BIOS. but i did everything else.

If the drives aren't showing up in BIOS the problem is either a bad BIOS
config (reset it to defaults, save and reboot) or you have a bad data or
power cable to the drive, or you have 2 bad drives.

--


------
"Ginzored" <Ginzored.3vhajb@DoNotSpam.com> wrote in message
news:Ginzored.3vhajb@DoNotSpam.com...
>
> Paul;4518783 Wrote:
>> Ginzored wrote:
>> > Ok i was in the process of switch my mothers 80G seagate barracuda
>> hard
>> > drive with a 160G seagate barracuda hard drive when both decided not
>> to
>> > work with her comp. When i turn it on it says i need to insert boot
>> > device, unfortunatly i have no such disk or CD. My other comp
>> doesn't
>> > have a floppy drive so i can't make a boot disk with that and the
>> comp
>> > that doesn't work probably doesn't boot from the CD drive. To top
>> it
>> > all off i have neather a floppy disk or writable CD to work with and
>> no
>> > store in town has them in stock. the Comp is a Sony Viao PCV-RZ32G.
>> Can
>> > anyone help?
>> >
>>
>> Things to check:
>>
>> 1) Jumpers on each hard drive. If the drives are on the same ribbon
>> cable,
>> one drive is Master, the other one Slave. Or both drives set to Cable
>> Select. If a *single* drive is on a ribbon cable, use the end
>> connector
>> on the cable, not the middle one.
>>
>> 2) All cables inserted properly, including power to each drive.
>>
>> 3) Verify the boot order in the BIOS Setup screen.
>> Enter the BIOS and verify that the 80GB drive is being
>> selected as the boot drive. There should be a menu, which
>> selects the order of storage devices to boot from.
>>
>> 4) You can use the BIOS screen to verify the hardware connectivity.
>> The BIOS screen should be listing the 80GB and 160GB drives by part
>> number.
>> The BIOS screen can be used to verify the drive is detected.
>>
>> You could try putting everything back, the way it was originally, and
>> see if that works.
>>
>> Any time you work on a computer, you need a "backup plan". In other
>> words, "what will I do, if I break this computer?".
>>
>> There are various rescue CDs you can prepare, and I use my Knoppix
>> CD, any time a computer does not have a working OS on it. But that
>> still requires a working CD drive. I don't think I would let a
>> computer sit, with a broken CD drive for very long, because that
>> is an essential ingredient for computer maintenance. If a computer
>> is completely isolated from the outside world, that makes it a bit
>> harder to fix.
>>
>> In any case, the tool of choice at this point, is the BIOS Setup
>> screens.
>> They'll tell you how much trouble you're in. Check for drive detection
>> first, then examine the boot order setting.
>>
>> I tried the documents here, but they don't even tell you which key
>> to press, to enter the BIOS screen ! Try pressing the F2 function key,
>> when you first power on the computer.
>>
>>
>> Paul
>
> Ok i wouldn't know what the jumpers on the hard disks look like, and
> the drives are not listed in BIOS. but i did everything else.
>
>
> --
> Ginzored
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Ginzored's Profile: http://forums.techarena.in/members/115690.htm
> View this thread: Hard drive no longer recognized by computer
>
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>

[Ginzored]

OOOOOKKKKK never mind i finaly figured out what was wrong. When i originaly took out my moms old HD i pulled out the ribbon cable from the comp and never realised it, seriously it's dark down there even with a flash light. And thanks for the help.

Ginzored wrote:

>
> Ok i wouldn't know what the jumpers on the hard disks look like, and
> the drives are not listed in BIOS. but i did everything else.
>

If you post the brand name and full part number for each hard
drive, I'll try and help you.

Paul

[Ginzored]

ok new problem same basick premise, now i don't know how to get the new hard drive recognized by the rest of the computer.
the hard drives are seagate barracuda ST380011A for the 80g and seagate barracuda ST3160215A for the 160G.

Ginzored wrote:
> OOOOOKKKKK never mind i finaly figured out what was wrong. When i
> originaly took out my moms old HD i pulled out the ribbon cable from the
> comp and never realised it, seriously it's dark down there even with a
> flash light. And thanks for the help.
>

So is everything OK now ?

I cannot tell, because of what you said in your other posting.

The motherboard in your computer, could be an Asus OEM P4SD-VX
motherboard. The picture here shows it has an Intel Southbridge
and room for four sticks of RAM. That tells me the chipset
is 875 or 865PE (DDR memory, AGP video slot). I would not
expect a computer of that vintage, to have a problem
using a 160GB IDE hard drive.


Paul