Hi Can anyone help me with this,
I bought a 60 gig hard drive, to upgrade my Acer aspire 1200 laptop, as it only had a 10 gig one.
However fdisc won't work, it just says "bad command or file name," or "not ready reading drive D:\".
I made another boot disc with win98, but its the same result.
The bios doesnt see the disc and wont let me go to it, to manually configure it, for some reason, as i scroll down to "hardrive" it just jumps past it.
I once tried to put a bigger hardrive in an old compaq for a friend, who got it from his company and the same or similar things happened, as it needed a special boot disc.
Is this Acer the same.
Thanks,
Keith..

[QUOTE=keith2005]Hi Can anyone help me with this,
I bought a 60 gig hard drive, to upgrade my Acer aspire 1200 laptop, as it only had a 10 gig one.
However fdisc won't work, it just says "bad command or file name," or "not ready reading drive D:\".
I made another boot disc with win98, but its the same result.
The bios doesnt see the disc and wont let me go to it, to manually configure it, for some reason, as i scroll down to "hardrive" it just jumps past it.
I once tried to put a bigger hardrive in an old compaq for a friend, who got it from his company and the same or similar things happened, as it needed a special boot disc.
Is this Acer the same.
Thanks,
Keith..[I sorted out the fdisk problem i spelt it fdisc. (oops sorry) but it tells me no disc installed now.

How are you installing this?

Booting from a floppy or a CD?

Acer ususally has a recovery CD???

Hi.
I have booted from a windows 98 startup disc & iv'e also tried with xp installation cd with the same result.
Do you know where i could get an Acer disc.
I bought this laptop off a friend but did'nt get any disc's.
Also the new hdd has its connection pins showing (just like a normal 3.5 inch hdd) but the acer's has a plastic surround around every pair of pins, have i got the wrong type, (although it seems to fit fine).
thanks keith.

Go to the HD manufacturers website and download the installation utility for the specific drive. Use this utility instead of fdisk to format your drive. It will also include it's own bios so your computer will recognize the new larger hardrive. After you format and partition your new drive you will need to update your 98 boot disk. There should be an option for this in the HD utility menu. When you run this it will tell you to remove the floppy and replace it with the 98 boot disk. After updating your boot disk, reboot your computer using the 98 boot disk. You will then be able to install win 98 on your new HD.

You do have the win 98 installation cd, do you not?

Hi.
I have booted from a windows 98 startup disc & iv'e also tried with xp installation cd with the same result.
Do you know where i could get an Acer disc.
I bought this laptop off a friend but did'nt get any disc's.
Also the new hdd has its connection pins showing (just like a normal 3.5 inch hdd) but the acer's has a plastic surround around every pair of pins, have i got the wrong type, (although it seems to fit fine).
thanks keith.

Laptop hard drives are 2.5". If you have a 3.5" drive it's for desktop. The connectors are different.

Are you sure you have the correct drive type?

Hi again,
To mick d.
thanks mick i'll try that.
I do indeed have a win 98 installation cd.
To classicsoftware.
Oh yes it is a 2.5 inch disc, i just wondered why the original had plastic surrounds round the pins and the new one doesnt.
Thanks very much for the reply's they are appreciated.
Keith.

I sent an email to Acer support team & got back 2 reply's.
1 informed me how to change the language on my keyboard, (strange).
The other said after searching their database he could not confirm the unit would take a hardrive bigger than 40 gig. little help there then, i told him the size & make, but asked if there was a disc needed to config the laptop for new drive.
Went to western digital website, could not find anything about installation problems or support downloads/utilities
No further forward as yet.

Here is the link directly to the Western Digital Tools you can download. This is the DOS version to be used with a new drive without an operating system installed on it.

http://support.wdc.com/download/downloadxml.asp#23

Follow the directions to create your floppy. You should be on your way to completing your install. I've used this many times with older win 98 machines and it takes care of the problems you are having without the risk or hassle of trying to update the bios.

Hi mickd.
I got the file, tried with that & that didnt see it either.( all it reports is the floppy & dvd drive.)
In the meantime I,d ordered a 2.5" portable caddy (firewire) & leads.
Fixed it all up plugged it into the laptops small 4 pin connector and it didnt see it.
It has a seperate usb to jack plug on the 4 pin type for power to it (that was connected also.) Its power light comes on and the hardrive powers up, ok i,can hear it running.
I changed leads to the full 6 pin firewire and plugged it into the main computer and it crashed it.
on restart the computer was ok but it didnt see the hardrive either.
I unplugged the fire wire cable at the caddy end and tried again and it crashed the computer again.
Still doesnt see it, I have 3 leads so tried them all, no result.
Now the caddy doesnt need the extra power cable if its using 6 pin firewire, (i think.)
Its just for 4 pin, but just in case, i plugged the extra one into a spare usb port & then, if i pull out the firewire cable & replug it, it doesnt crash the computer.
And when i say crash, it seems to be a total loss of power for a second.
I think the new hardrive is broken. so i'll be sending it back for replacement.
Unless you have any other ideas.?
Also i'd ordered a network crossover cable.
Ive fixed that up and the 2 machines seem to be working fine, but all i am able to do at present is see the shared network folders on the laptop. how do i share the home computers broadband modem for internet access, & how do i go to other folders from 1 machine (to look inside) the others.
keith

You are correct about the 6 pin firewire. The extra 2 pins are for power and you should not connect 4 pin power plug when hooked up with the 6 pin firewire. Only hook up the 4 pin power when using the 4 pin firewire.

Did you try changing the bios from auto detect to manual and entering the drive specs manually? Recheck the jumper pins. There should not be any jumpers when installed as a single drive in the laptop. However, when hooking it up to the desktop from the caddy through firewire, I'm not sure what the jumper setting but I would think it should be dual and slave.

I recommend posting your broadband and network questions in the Network forum. While I have setup my own network at home and mapped drives for file sharing I don't consider myself a network specialist. The are other people that can answer your questions and provide instructions much better than I can.

Thanks for that mick,
the bios wont let me into the floppy or hardrive settings, as i scroll down the page it just jumps over them.
no problems setting the first boot device or time etc.
Thats why i initially thought it might need its own Acer, boot or utility disc, like the old compaq's.
No jumpers set on the drive. (ever)
I never thought it would need a jumper in the external caddy nothing in the cadys instructions says it does.
I would have thought it would be classed as a removable storage device, like a zip drive through a firewire card.
Could be wrong though.
I still think it should have been seen by the computers though even if it messed them up.
I will post my question about networking in networking, ive messed on all day with the damned things they connect fine but i must have accesses wrong somewhere as i can see hal9000 & hal8000 (yes i know, sad) in explorer even but if i click on either i get see the administrator etc and connection not found.
Iv'e been searching through the posts for the same problem but didnt find it.
See ya keeeith

I have finally resolved the hard drive problem.
1 i sent it back and they said it was broken, sent me a new one.
still didnt work in the laptop or caddy.
2 the original hd had a removable pin cover that converted it to fit the laptop, i didnt see it at first.
I just pulled it off and fitted it to the new one, put it in the laptop and hey presto it found it.
I used the new format tool that mickd recommended and wow was it easy with that compared to windows fdisk, Thanks Mick. ( recommend everyone get that.)
3 once formatted and put in the caddy the computers both recognise it and i can file transfer between the two till my hearts content.
Ive now put it in the laptop and am using the old 10gig drive in the caddy and all is well with the world.
Many thanks for your replys.
keith