replacing hard drive on compaq presario r3000

Hello,

I am trying to replace a hard drive on a compaq presario r3000.

I have purchased a samsung 80gb notebook hard drive (specifications here)

Having screwed the new hard drive into the notebook chassis, I try to install windows xp home edition sp2, and get an error message saying that no hard disk drive is installed on the system. When I check in the bios, I am informed that no hdd is available.

samsung does not offer any drivers, but they provide a program called Disk Manager which is supposed to set up the hard drive in the case that it is not recognized. However, the program is only supplied as a bootable floppy disk image. Unfortunately, the r3000 has no floppy disk.

Can anybody advise me? Can I put the bootable floppy onto a CD-ROM? Has anybody else successfully installed the Samsung drive onto a presario r3000?

Thanks for your help, Best wishes,

mick

hi unfalliblekrutc,

No, it doesn't show up in my bios. I have however tested the notebook with a couple of different Hdds, and they show up fine. So it's something special about the samsung one.

added in edit: the samsung disk utility is unable to run as the hdd isn't found. Is it just a dud device?

Cheers

Mick

Hi, thanks for your suggestions. I may try to get hold of a 2.5in -> 3.5in adapter to try it out on a desktop.

I tried to put the hdd into my girlfriend's laptop (which is a hp pavilion ze4400) and I got an error message that the hdd couldn't be found, and that I should check the cable.

Obviously there is no cable here, but I did take a closer look at the connection. Below is a photo of part of the base of my laptop. On the right is the cavity that would contain the hdd. On the left is the hdd screwed into its chassis.

You can see from the photo quite clearly that the connector on the hdd could never meet up with the socket on the computer. It looks as though the connector is about 1 cm too far away from the end of the chassis (see white arrows). In any case, the two little black protrusions of plastic you can see at each side of the top of the hdd (covering part of the connector) would likely prevent the hdd from sliding into place even if it extended far enough toward the socket. It looks to me as though the connector is "upside down" relative to the socket.

Any ideas??? Is it possible to replace the metal chassis that is screwed into my notebook to hold the hdd in place so that the connectors meet? Or could I just drill a few new holes is the chassis so that the hdd is held in the correct position?

Thanks for your help guys!

Thanks Teckng778,

I will return the hard drive. I'm a bit surprised as I had thought that all notebook hard drives had the same form factor. It kind of makes me nervous about buying another one, given that I won't know whether it fits or not until it arrives...

Thanks anyway!

Mick

hi ikenfixit

you have fixed it.

Cheers - THANKYOU

[as a note to other users, the old hard drive had a small plastic adapter about 1cm long plugged into its connector. When I removed this adapter from the old drive and put it onto the front of the new one, it fit perfectly. I' feel pretty stupid now - I didn't even realise that there was an adapter on the old one]

mick