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D900k will not "see" new HDD. - Page 2

post #21 of 33
1/29/11 at 12:39pm
Thread Starter 

Cloned drive also ignored!

Found Easeus Disk Copy as you suggested & the cloning processes worked fine. It successfully made a clone of my 2nd HDD (AKA D drive). I ended up with a 500GB drive with about 93 GB of data & a lot of unallocated space (unallocated space expected). I installed the new D drive in the notebook booted up & the system ignores the drive. Scanning for new hardware (which from what I understand shouldn't be necessary) doesn't help.
Plugged the drive in via a SATA to USB cable & the drive shows up and works fine. I then used Easeus Partition Master to resize/move the partition. Now it’s a 500 GB drive again. Reinstalled in the notebook but still no drive!
The original D drive when reinstalled in the notebook is still recognized.

I had high hopes that cloning would be the answer to getting this notebook to recognize drives other than the ones originally installed.

My plan is to reformat the new D drive & clone again. When the cloning finished the first time & I selected “quit” the Easeus program popped up a window, I selected shutdown (99% sure) but the system restarted. At that point both D drives were attached to the notebook. Original D installed & the cloned D via the USB cable. Haveing both may have caused issues so I thought I’d try again.

Any new thoughts?
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post #22 of 33
1/29/11 at 1:56pm
Hmmm, I wonder if the system BIOS is being locked to see only the original drives and none other Some sort of security mechanism. I am lost here. Maybe a BIOS flash?

cheers ...
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post #23 of 33
1/29/11 at 2:12pm
Thread Starter 
Reformat at about 80% complete. If my second attempt to clone doesn't work I may try the BIOS flash. I'll have to find a copy of the latest BIOS, probably in this forum.
Thanks! Please post again if you have any other thoughts.
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post #24 of 33
1/29/11 at 2:39pm
Good luck. I'll check around some more

cheers ...
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post #25 of 33
1/29/11 at 4:18pm
Thread Starter 
Thanks!
I was thinking...
I replaced the motherboard on this notebook when I first got it. Right off the bat I could not load Windows on either of the 2 new HDD's, there were not recognized by the system. The friend I got the notebook from let me have the original HDD's. The originals are an Hitachi (C Drive) & a Seagate (D Drive). They were immediately recognized.
Doesn't the BIOS reside on the motherboard? I did nothing with the BIOS on the new motherboard other then check the version number to see if it was the latest, it was.
My point is the BIOS was changed with the motherboard, right?
Oh well, Re-format is complete. I'll retry the cloning...
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post #26 of 33
1/29/11 at 6:27pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by rickinsavh View Post
Thanks!
I was thinking...
I replaced the motherboard on this notebook when I first got it. Right off the bat I could not load Windows on either of the 2 new HDD's, there were not recognized by the system. The friend I got the notebook from let me have the original HDD's. The originals are an Hitachi (C Drive) & a Seagate (D Drive). They were immediately recognized.
Doesn't the BIOS reside on the motherboard? I did nothing with the BIOS on the new motherboard other then check the version number to see if it was the latest, it was.
My point is the BIOS was changed with the motherboard, right?
Oh well, Re-format is complete. I'll retry the cloning...
Most (if not all) of the time

cheers ...
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post #27 of 33
1/29/11 at 8:07pm
Thread Starter 
Cloned again, same results, cloned D drive not recognized.
I was looking around in the BIOS & saw an option to "Clear the extended system configuration data (ESCD) area.
2 questions...
1 Do you think that clearing this could help?
2 Any potential negative effects to clearing this?

I noticed that POST take a little longer than usual when I install the cloned D drive. I assume that the ESCD is being updated since there is a change to the D drive. I just wish it would pick up & recognize the cloned D drive.

I was looking at some system specs on the Prostar version of the D900K (9068) & noticed that some limitations on HDD size. See attached...

120 GB max
5400 RPM
SATA 150 (AKA 1.5 'vs' 3.0?)
LL
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post #28 of 33
1/29/11 at 8:15pm
Interesting about the size - SATA should be pretty much open end as I see it. As far as speed, it should drop to 1.5 if the controller cannot handle it. It's a general understanding, but there is always a but

Sure, you can reset the ESCD area if you want, never heard nor experienced anything bad about clearing it. It will refresh itself at the next boot anyway.

Wondering if you just get a 120GB SATA 150 and see how it works

cheers ...
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post #29 of 33
1/30/11 at 9:56am
It looks very much too me that the laptop is too old and will fail to see a hard drive over 132Gb... Quite common a few years back and was resolved with a BIOS update, providing the vendor produced one to alleviate this issue, or in the case of desktop PC's and add on card could be used. I would be tempted to get hold of an old 80 to 120Gb SATA drive and see if the system picks it up. Also if you can find out if there is a separate controller for the SATA ports (ie Promise, Silicon Image, Highpoint etc.), you may be able to get a firmware update specifically off their website for that controller which should resolve the issue...
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post #30 of 33
2/10/11 at 11:22pm
Thread Starter 
I found this site when looking around for Bios info. Has anyone here heard of, BiosAngentPlus.com? This site says that there is a 1.00.05 Bios available for my D9k. No one on this site is indicating a 1.00.05 version. I've included a screen shot of the results of letting this site evaluate my system. Notice that it also indicates an update for the IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers. Is this maybe the SATA ports controller update that Mr T posted about?
It's only $30 to join this site & you can use it on up to 10 PC's.
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post #31 of 33
2/11/11 at 10:33am
I don't use those BIOS or Drivers Agent Sites

Maybe a member would have the BIOS version and attach it for you.

cheers ...
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post #32 of 33
2/12/11 at 7:56pm
Thread Starter 
I was wondering qhn, why no agents for you? If the company is legitimate, big if, then it may very well be worth it to some to pay the $$ for a one stop update to quite a few drives, firmware, bios, etc...

Do you (or anyone else) have an opinion on this particular agent?

I'm more concerned about getting bad info and possibly screwing up my notebook than I am about loosing $30.

Thoughts?
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post #33 of 33
2/12/11 at 8:03pm
For me drivers, BIOS versions, firmware etc ... belong to the manufacturers, and free to system users. Most of the time, unless there is a real and valid need to update these files, there is no need for update.

In your case there might be a valid issue regarding a drive (size) where it is not being recognized, but my search came up empty as far as a driver/BIOS/firmware update would address the issue. And of course, as you mentioned - it could brick your notebook

cheers ...
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