dell optiplex gx1 500 mhz win xp drive not visible

L

llacy

New Member
dell optiplex gx1 500 mhz bios a10 win xp drive not visible

i am trying to put a 40 gig hard drive in my kids dell.
if the hard drive is the master (has xp) then the bios show it if tou enter setup, but it says primary drive fails.
if i set it as the slave (with xp) the bois sees it, but it doesn't show up in windows explorer, or the device manager list.

is it a 32 gig drive limit or something else?
 
I don't know much about the system so I don't know how much help I'll be...

Are you setting the jumpers for wahtever you're trying to install the drive as? Does the bios have an auto setup deal for your harddrives? If so, be sure it's setup for your new HD correctly. Some computers have the settings entered for the primary/original HD, but are auto on the others.

As for not seeing it when it's a slave, assuming it worked hardware wise(bios and all) right-click on my computer and go to manage, then disk management. Assign a drive letter if you see the drive there.
 
how old is the pc?
did you use FAT32 or NTFS partitions
who makes Your PCs bios

the 32gig limit is only if you are using FAT32, FAT32 can not support larger than 32gigs partitions. There was a flaw in the AWARD bios around 1999 that affected drivers that tried to use 32gig or larger partiotions. Award has long since corrected this, so if you have award bios, you may want to flash your bios. IF tou flash your bios YOU HAVE TO KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING, FLASHING WITH THE WRONG .bin FILE , OR INCOMPLETE FLASH, PC GETTING TURNED OFF IN THE MIDDLR OF FLASH ...etc CAN RUIN THE PC.
How did xp get on this 40 gig HD ?
 
Even so, the drive should still be detected - it will just only detect 32GB. My guess is that the drive hasn't been partitioned. Go to Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Computer Management -> Disk Management, and see if the drive is displayed there. If it is, create a partition on it. That should cause the drive to appear in My Computer.
 
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