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General discussion

how to get pc to reconize hard drive.

Nov 11, 2013 12:29AM PST

Hello all
I have a old gateway computer, and I have put in a 80gb hard drive with the jumper on the master pin
and each time I boot it up I get the message that no hard drive could be found and to press esc to
prevent this message from showing up again or to press enter to continue with out the hard drive. If any one
has a clue to what I can to do to get the computer to recognize the hard drive I would be most greatfull.
I went into the bios and set everything to boot from the default settings and that did not help. I would like to put win xp on it to run my old games and not to be going on the inter net after April 14.
Thanks for any Help

sonnyboy66

Discussion is locked

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This can be true.
Nov 11, 2013 12:41AM PST

If we disregard any failure of drive, cable or motherboard there are TWO systems of setup for IDE. The original was the master slave and other arcane jumpers on 40 conductor cables (not to be confused with 40 pin IDE!)

Later you should find Cable Select as the PC makers needed to staunch the blood flow (money) on the production lines where the assemblers could get it wrong.

So you have TWO major jumper schemes, TWO types of IDE cables and a treasure trove of jumper settings to explore at https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&as_q=ide+jumpers

-> Sorry but I have done this for many years and in the end you need to know all 4 areas and then admit to going with which works.
Bob

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no hard drive found
Nov 13, 2013 10:25PM PST

Good morning
I tried everythig you can think of, I put the jumper on each pin and rebooted and did not put on a pin at all
and I still got the same message. It must be the mother board, so I am going to send to pc to the junk yard,
it's really old so I don't mine. Thanks for your help
sonnyboy66

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Make and model of the drive?
Nov 11, 2013 3:12AM PST

On some, a jumper for "master" presumes a slave drive is present. With no slave present, you get the error. On these, you either go with no jumper or find one that refers to it being a single drive.

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No real details present...
Nov 11, 2013 10:51PM PST

Make sure you're using the "primary EIDE slot" to connect cable and the last connection of cable is used to attach HD. That the HD is master and only HD present. You should google anything on that model# HD or check the sticker/decal on the HD for info(2nd jumper maybe needed). Hopefully, when you boot, it should see that some HD is present. If not be sure to check what I just posted above. If again, no good result, then it appears the EIDE slot is bad or the cable, get a different cable and 100% sure it ordinated right. If it does see the HD but can't boot, etc., then that HD has to be intilized, etc. for use, install OS< etc., for proper operation.

What are your results, post back.

tada -----Willy Happy

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no hard drive found on boot up
Nov 13, 2013 10:30PM PST

I tried everythig you can think of, I put the jumper on each pin and rebooted and did not put on a pin at all
and I still got the same message. It must be the mother board, so I am going to send to pc to the junk yard,
it's really old so I don't mine. Thanks for your help
sonnyboy66

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no hard drive found
Nov 14, 2013 10:11PM PST

I tried doing what you said and got a different error messate NTLDR missing. So I wint to ms support site
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555304
and thried what they listed to do and it did not help. I think I am going to junk the darn thing.

sonnyboy62

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If you get a NTLDR missing
Nov 14, 2013 10:25PM PST

And if that's with only a HDD and no boot CD then the HDD is now found. However there are good reasons for this message such as a BIOS change from CHS to LBA in the BIOS. Remember this is legacy stuff with arcane information such as http://discussions.virtualdr.com/showthread.php?101786-Mode-for-HD-LBA-Normal-or-Large and few remember this stuff.

But the BIOS defaults are best used and the owner/maker of the machine should have left a note if anything needs to be different in the bios from default.

Also, most of the time you can't "fix" the NTLDR but reinstall the OS. And as XP is that old, even doing that appears to be a lost art.
Bob