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General discussion

Dell Inspiron Latitude c600, Does not Detect Hard Drive

Jul 9, 2005 4:38AM PDT

Hi,

The original hard drive got corrupted somehow. It was an IBM Thinkstar (20gb).

I recently purchased a Seagate Momentus (OEM) 40gb, installed it, and the notebook will not detect the hard drive.

The actual message on the notebook screen reads:
"Primary hard disk drive 0 not found"

I've tried various software tools (notibly Hiren's Boot CD), re-checked jumpers, and tried to use Dell support for files. All I could find were boot disks (I don't have a floppy drive in my notebook) and a diagnostic's cd that doesn't serve as a cd boot disk.

I'm at a loss of what to do. In case it helps, the BIOS Revision is A19. Thank you for your time and I look forward to any replies I get.

-Keith

Discussion is locked

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Just a thought
Jul 10, 2005 11:24AM PDT

This shows as an older PIII that came with a 6 gig drive when I do a search. Is it possible that it's not capable of handling a 40 gig drive? Not knowing your BIOS, I am wondering if it has a "user defined" option where you set things manually. You may need to scale down the size a bit to a lower # of cylinders.

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RE: Just a thought
Jul 10, 2005 12:02PM PDT

Thanks for the reply. It is an older PIII notebook, however, the original IBM Travelstar HDD was 20gb. I found out that the difference in the HDDs is that the Seagate drive has just the pins to connect to the notebook motherboard, while the IBM drive has a strip connector.

I was told that I should remove the strip connector from the IBM and put it on my Seagate drive, but I don't see an easy way to do this. It has those tiny star shaped screws, and I don't have the right tools to take it apart at the time. Anyhow, I think that is the problem, but I'm not sure. Any other feedback would be appreciated.

-Keith

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It has those tiny star shaped screws,
Jul 11, 2005 3:17AM PDT

They are just a small phillips type of screw.
Laptop HDs have pins which plug into a conector on the mother board or and adapter on some laptops. So Just get some small phillips screw drives anf transfer the connector. John

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They are not phillips
Jul 11, 2005 9:08PM PDT

which is 4 point. They are 6 point and similar to the splined screwdrivers used in many applications today. These started with such as automobile interiors. They are available at computer outlets and possibly Radio Shack. In some applications, security screws are used but I doubt that the case here. Security screws have the additional annoyance that they only turn one direction. You cannot back them out by normal means. These are found on certain hardware dealing with electrical power such as safety triggers on AC lines.

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Re: They are not phillips
Jul 12, 2005 1:01AM PDT

You're right. They are called Socket Cap screws or Allen-head bolts. I haven't bought the screwdriver yet, but like you said, I'm pretty sure they're at Radio Shack.

Thanks for all of your help guys.

-Keith