Intalling 60 gig hard disk on pent 400 system... need help

[Coroloro]

I've posted here before, right at the time of my purchase of a hard disk for my sister's computer system (an Acer system, the manual is here http://www.acersupport.com/library/p6100ug.pdf ) which is a Pentium II 400 mhz system. The hard disk is a brand new, western digital 60 gig hard disk, and the folks on here expressed concern as to such a large hard disk being recognized on a slightly older system. I installed it, turned the system on, and it showed the "new hardware wizard" initially upon Win 98 starting up, but it dissapeared and then nothing else happened. I tried the add new hardware wizard then, but it found nothing, and a new hard disk did not show on the system.

I have two questions: am I missing anything I should be doing, that I might not be doing? How can I be sure that the problem is the hard disk being too large? Secondly, if it is too large to be recognized, do I 1) try to return it and get a smaller one if I can, or 2) get overlay software. As for the overlay software, how do I get it, where, what, and is it difficult to run? I'm not an experienced pro here, just a home user who can follow directions and has several times. Thankyou for your help, in advance!

-Patrick

[mjc]

Ok...the first thing you need to do is to enter the BIOS and see if the drive is recognized there .... then you need to use a windows startup disk and boot to it to partition and format the drive (post back if you need detailed instructions on that)....and then it should be usable by windows.

As for overlay software, you get it from the manufacturer of the dirve...if it is a Seagate drive go to the Seagate website and look at the drive tools...the overlay software should be on the download page....


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mjc
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[wiltrot]

Are you keeping the original hard drive on the system as well? Your new hard drive should have some installation instructions & software that came with it. After installing it you can copy the old drive onto the new one. The software will make this pretty simple for you. You will have the option to partition the hard drive and copy the old with the software. It was designed to be user friendly.

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[Coroloro]

I believe that the disk drive was OEM, and came with nothing but the drive... no directions, no software, unfortunately. I've done the windows startup disk before, but if you could remind me how to create one and give specifics, I would deeply appreciate that. Help on partitioning and formating it through the startup disk would be much appreciated as well, just in-case I can't figure it out.
Thank you again!

-Patrick

[rond36]

You need to go to the Western Digital web site and download the Western Digital Lifeguard Tools V2.8 (http://www.westerndigital.com/support/download/index.asp#dlgtools). The file that you will download (dlgmaker.exe) will make a bootable floppy that you can use to get your drive ready for use

Data Lifeguard Tools Software Utilities:
Easily partitions and formats the new hard drive.
Overcomes operating system and BIOS limitations.
Quickly and safely copies the contents of the existing hard drive onto the new hard drive.
Tests drive for Ultra ATA compatibility.
Can quickly diagnose and repair many drive problems that may arise.
Keep this floppy in a safe place because you will need it again if you upgrade your motherboard and want to enable UDMA 100 and remove the compatibility overlay. Western Digital hard drives come from the factory with UDMA disabled and this floppy is the only utility that will enable it so your BIOS and operating system will recognize the drive as a UDMA drive. I have two WD drives and had to run it for both drives when I upgraded from a 333MHz PII to a 1200MHz AMD Athlon.


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[This message has been edited by rond36 (edited 01-23-2002).]

[Paleo Pete]

To make a standard Windows Start up disk, go to Start\Settings\Control Panel\Add/Remove Programs. Click the Start Up Disk tab, have a clean floppy handy, put it into the floppy drive, click Create Disk. Sit back and wait.

The bootable floppy described above with the disk tools should work well for what you need to do this time, but definitely make a standard Windows start up disk for future use.

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