Issue with HDD Swapping.

[focus]

MY old computer broke down so i got a new one of a friend.
His original harddrive is SEAGATE Barracuda ATA IV - 80 GB but i want to put my old hardrive in which is a SEAGATE Barracuda 7200 10 - 320 GB.

When i try to swap them i get the error:
Secondary IDE Channel no 80 conductor cable installed.
Primary master hard disk failed.

When i put the jumper in the same HDD then the screen just freezes on detecting IDE Drives.

However, when i plug the 80GB harddrive in which came with the computer using the same cables it boots up as normal.

Also i know the 320 HDD i'm trying to put in works for sure and have tested it.

Any idea's? this is drivin me insane!!

[Darkmere]

The Cables are not compatible with the HDD. That error states you are attempting to use a 40 pin Cable with a UDMA33 or better HDD which requires an 80 pin. That error can also state that you have some BIOS Configuration errors but is rare. It is most likely the cables

[theone48]

Hey, that might be similar to my idea.

I had a Gateway desktop who's hard drive went ape. I guess the info got all badly scrambled. Nothing has worked so far to get it back up. I've tried pcfix softare, re-installing the OS, using an emergency disk (unfortunatley, I don't speak msdos) and nothing works. Any ideas how to revive a dead HD? If not, anyone know whether I would be able to replace the internal HD with an external one and get the computer back running that way?

[focus]

I'm pretty sure it's not the cable.
I compared both cables and HDD Pins and they are the same.
I also took one of the cables from the old computer and plugged it into the new one.
The 320GB hard drive still did not load but the 80GB did.

I managed to be able to boot from the CD now.
When i have the 320GB HDD in and i boot from cd to re-install windows it gets up to the last screen which says there is no HDD connected to the computer.

The computer is just having trouble detecting the 320GB HDD. Maybe i should try flashing the bios or somthing?

[theone48]

focus,

Perhaps the computer thinks the cables are the wrong type.

[essellar]

Hey, that might be similar to my idea.

I had a Gateway desktop who's hard drive went ape. I guess the info got all badly scrambled. Nothing has worked so far to get it back up. I've tried pcfix softare, re-installing the OS, using an emergency disk (unfortunatley, I don't speak msdos) and nothing works. Any ideas how to revive a dead HD? If not, anyone know whether I would be able to replace the internal HD with an external one and get the computer back running that way?

If the master boot record (MBR) is damaged, or the file allocation tables are similarly affected (or if there's physical damage to the heads or platters, or if the sectors/cylinders data is shot in the drive's firmware), then recovery of the old disk is going to be more of a chore than simply booting from another disk. You'll need software that can read the raw disk content and make sense of it (if the physical disk is okay), or you'll need to swap out the platter stack into another drive unit. That's specialised stuff, and as expensive as a data recovery service can be, they're often actually the cheaper option. So your files may be gone unless you consider them more valuable than the cost of recovery. Let this be a lesson: backing up isn't optional, really, so get a good backup package (I like Acronis TrueImage) and do system backups frequently (I do them weekly) and data backups constantly. Drives are cheap and ubiquitous; data is valuable and rare.

As for the non-threadjacking original question: are you sure the mobo supports the disk type, and is the BIOS set to autodetect it?

[theone48]

essellar, thanks! I believe the problem originated with an HD encryption program I used. The computer shut down unexpectedly and the info got mangled. The more I tried to fix it, the more mangled it got. seems backup really is critical. Sorry for the interruption, but as this thread was talking about HD's, thought it seemed fitting to ask. thank you again.