I am trying to help a friend with a problem he is having with his computer. It is a Dell Dimension E310. It is 1 gig of memory, a Samsung Sata 160 gig hard drive. a 1.8 ghz Pentium 4 processor (I think). The system is 1 and 1/2 years old.

He told me that his system would not start and I took it to look at. I'm sure he replaced the hard drive with the Samsung Sata 160 gig.

I've tried to start the sytem and I can get into BIOS. IT DOES NOT RECOGNIZE THE HARD DRIVE! I thought I would try to set the boot order for the CD/DVD drive and put a Windows XP disc into the drive. Even though it shows that it recognizes the cd drive and that I have set the boot order to look for
the CD/DVD first it will not do anything but sit there.

I have an idea. Maybe somebody can tell me if I'm thinking along the right path. I can get hold of a external floppy disk. I have a Windows 98 SE emergency start up disk. I also have a Western Digital Utility Disk that can check and repair installations. Does it make any sense to try to use these discs so that I can format this Samsung Drive.

My real question is why the drive is not recognized in BIOS??

The rest of the computer looks good. The USB keyboard I've attached works along with the mouse. Monitor does work.

Where do I go to get this computer functioning. Like I said I own a Windows XP Home that he is going to buy off of me. I don't use it now that I have Vista Ultimate on my desktop and Vista Home Premium on my Laptop.

Thanks for any and all suggestions. I am sure it is something that can be corrected.

Steve Bell

http://reviews.cnet.com/desktops/dell-dime...7-31594474.html

I see that this system has a SATA controller and a PATA/IDE controller.

Which was used with the original drive?

If the PATA/IDE controller was used for the original boot drive, then I would think that a BIOS change would need to be made in order to now use a SATA hard drive...and the SATA driver would have to be loaded/installed if it is not already.

At that point, Windows will recognize the drive.

Your comment that the BIOS does not recognize the drive...is that correct? The drive is not seen in the BIOS at all?

Does the user have a system manual to guide her/him?

http://search.dell.com/results.aspx?c=us&a...se&~ck=anav

Louis

I'm going to see if there is a user manual or any disks to load driver for Sata. I've reset the BIOS so that it should recognize the drive. I'm surprised that it doesn't.

More after I get back into it today.

Thanks

Has the hdd been formated? Was there an OS installed on it?

I'm sure it has not been formatted and there is no operating system on it. I can get into DOS using a Windows Emergency Start Up Disk and even get into providing capability for the CD but that is where it stops.

I have an idea. If this system originally had an IDE drive, would it make sense to put an IDE drive in it instead. Maybe an 80 gig (bypasses the 130 gig limit which would need Service Pack II.) It may be that it needs the IDE drive to recognize a drive. Then it could be f disked and formatted and an operating stystem installed on it. Does this seem like a good idea.

There is only one connector on the mother board for a drive. It is being used by the CD rom and then there is an open connector for and IDE drive. I would have to find a way to get power to it this might work.

Also, If the CD drive is a master will I have to make the IDE hard drive a slave?

Just thought but I'm about ready to give up on getting this 160 gig sata drive to be recognized.

Thanks for any and all suggestions.

most of those systems came with a sata 1(80gig?) hard drive

the replacement is probably sata 2, it might have to be jumpered for compatibility?

I would double check cables tho since intel based chipsets didn't have that problem afaik, but then the sata controller could be a via???????????