| Make sure the grey IDE cable is securely connected to the back of the
drive. Push your finger along the connector to ensure it's firmly seated
across the whole connector.
Make sure the power cable is firmly plugged in - it should feel pretty
tight.
Refit the system case. Plug the mains power, keyboard, etc back in.
Switch on and go into the BIOS. Go to the Auto-detect hard disk option.
If it still says 'None', then go into the screen that lists the drives,
move across to the 'Type' field in the 'Primary Master' row and set this
to 'User' or whatever similar option you have where you can type in the
Cylinders, Heads and Sectors. Type in the CHS settings that you noted
down earlier. The 'Size' field should now display the correct size of
the hard disk. If it doesn't, there might be a 'Mode' or 'Block' option
in the last column on the right, which you can probably set to 'Auto'.
Exit the BIOS, saving the changes.
The PC will reboot and will try to load Windows. Does it work now? If
it doesn't, you've probably got a faulty hard disk. We might be able
to still try something else though, so let us know (you'll need to tell
us if you couldn't follow any part of the above instructions because
you didn't have the same options, etc).
(Note that, like the Windows registry, incorrect use of the BIOS may
have adverse effects on your system).
To ask questions about detecting hard disks or get help with your computer
visit our forum |
