Hello, I just got a 80gb Maxtor HD, and am having troubles installing it... It's recognized in CMOS, but not in windows (Windows ME)... The HD didn't come with any software, so I went to the Maxtor site and downloaded their bootdisk making program, and made a disk... Which doesn't seem to work. When I put it in on startup and it gets past all the BIOS messages, it starts reading the A drive and then gives me a "DOS not found!" message or something like that... Anyone have any ideas to help with this?

Welcome to http://www.pcguide.com/ubb/pcgubb.gif

I would go back to the hard drive site and try the download again or try making the disk again from the copy you already have. That will be your best bet for testing the drive and getting it set up.

Budfred

Edit:
Also, it sounds like you already have another drive in the same computer. Did you make sure you configured them with the old drive as Master and the new one as Slave if they are on the same IDE port?

Budfred again

Hi,

Have to tried creating a boot disk and booting from that.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;267287

The other problem as Budfred mentioned could be you have got the wrong jumper settings if you have more than one hard drive.

Slim

Your CMOS sees the drive, that's good. Jumpers are all set correctly.
You need to partion the drive for windows to see it, and format the drive for windows to use it. The best way to do this is with the software from the drive manufacturer. If you can't get it done this way, it can be done from DOS, but is more difficult, and requires attention to details. There people here who can walk you through those steps, but will need to know more about how your computer is set up.

It may be [I don't know] that Maxtor does not make the disk a bootable disk.
Perhaps you are expected [and instructed in the readme file] to copy their software to a disk which has already been made bootable, or to use a separate bootable disk.

Make a disk bootable by following the instructions in the web page linked to by slim.
This could be used to copy the system files to the disk you have already made.

Why not check the contents of your disk for:

Msdos.sys
Io.sys
Command.com
Drvspace.bin

then you'll know whether it has the system files on it or not.

See useful info here
http://www.pcguide.com/care/bu/boot_Contents.htm

Well, I went to their site and downloaded the program again and made a new bootdisk, and it worked!

But now I've got a new problem... I'm telling the MaxBlast program to make a copy of my old HD on my new HD, and set it to auto partition... Once it gets about 1% done, I get an error that boots me back out to the A:\. I've tried doing a thorough scandisk and a defrag of my old HD, and it still gives the same error.

I forgot to post the error message, and now it's too late to edit, so here it is:

Error:
Reading Drive 80 I/O Timeout:
Sector = 31457375, Result = 4

This happens when it gets about 1% done and is copying the file "NVCPD.HLP"

Also, I tried looking on the Maxtor website and it had a fix which involved going into the bios and changing the cylinders etc., but it made no difference, the error message was the same.

Perhaps the BIOS's hardware configuration parameters for the HDD's are incorrectly specified.

Set all Hard Disks to "auto" and the BIOS will "Dynamically Auto-Detect and Configure" the correct parameters and display the disk drive detections on screen [shortly before booting (from the floppy disk in this case)] at every boot.

The old HDD should initially be jumpered as master and the new as slave [both connected to the cable in the primary IDE socket].

During the copy procedure, the new drive will have its primary partition marked "active" [the boot partition] and the old drive which formerly had the active primary partition will be re-designated as no longer "active" [no longer the boot partition].

After the copy is complete you should shut down the PC and switch the jumpers to make the new the master and the old the slave.

Hence the new master has an active primary partition and the new slave has a primary partition which is not "active".

"Dynamic Auto-Detection" will detect the new jumper arrangements because this process is carried out at every boot.

Simple isn't it?

I tried having the BIOS auto-configure the HD's, atleast I think that's what you're saying. It still gave the same error.

However, the new HD still formats fine, so I'm just going to start from scratch and install things fresh, and mabye move a few programs over. One question: If I were to just copy and paste the old HD onto the new one, or maybe just the windows files, would it work fine? Or does that not work?

Thank you all for your replies, atleast now I can get my new HD functioning :)

What program are you using to copy the files to the new harddrive? I don't know if you can copy the system files while they are in use. You may need to use a program like Norton Ghost to do this.

Generally a simple copy and paste will not work with programs, but it will with individual files. Programs have too many different connections throughout Windows that are required to run properly, so you have to install them. If you use a Ghost type program to make an image of the hard drive, you can transfer the whole thing that way.

Budfred

I Think the drive is bad.

You get an error at the same point when you reach the same cylinder?????


Call Maxtor Tech suppoert. Open saturday morning. They will be very helpfull and you should be up & running in no time.

I was using MaxBlast Plus II or whatever it's called to copy the drive data...

And I tried testing the new drive using their PowerMax testing program, and it passed all tests, so I don't think there's anything wrong with the new drive.

Oh well, guess I'd better start installing all that junk...

Still call Maxtor tomorrow AM.

Try to put the new drive as the primary master on the secondary IDE channel. That usually means you disconnect the CD-ROM.

Also, it;s late for me so do you have the correct IDE cable?

Laso you have IM?

Hello "I've a news"

You said "I tried having the BIOS auto-configure the HD's"

If you went into the BIOS Setup, then "IDE HDD Auto Detection" and had the BIOS detect one drive at a time then:

This is "Static Auto Detection", which only does one drive at a time [it can be repeated for others].
When this is used to set the parameters, these settings are retained even if you change drives or jumpers and thereby make the settings inappropriate and incorrect.
Not a good way to go because you must repeat this procedure after every hardware change and it's easy to forget to do it.

How to achieve "Dynamic Auto Detection".
1. Go into the BIOS Setup.
2. Go to "Standard CMOS Setup".
3. Under:
"HARD DISK" & "TYPE"
set
Primary Master : Auto
Primary Slave : Auto
Secondary Master : Auto
Secondary Slave : Auto