Hard Drive Problem + Re-occuring boot problem.

[aaaaaaaaaa]

Dell System Dimension 4550 Series
Pheonix ROM BIOS PLUS Version 1.10 A08

I just put a new hard drive in, and now the computer refuses to boot whatsoever. The only screen I get to says.....

Diskette Drive 0 Seek Failure
Primary Hard Disk Drive 1 Not Found
Secondary Hard Disk Drive 0 Not Found
Secondary Hard Disk Drive 1 Not Found

Strike the F1 Key to Continue, Strike F2 to Run the Setup Utility

Striking both F1 or F2 does nothing, you just hear some kind of error beep.

I've always gotten this message with the old hard drive, however hitting F1 actually let you boot into that hard drive. I want to be able to boot into this hard drive, and figure out why I get this message whenever I boot so I can 86 it all together.

This computer was previously owned, so I don't know much about this history of the old hard drive. I know the hard drive I'm trying to put in is pretty old and quite handled.

Here is the old hard drive.
http://www.hitachigst.com/hdd/desk/ds120gxp.htm

Here is the new hard drive.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822144102

 

[Springy182]

Have you set jumpers for master/slave? Your drives are IDE so that could be the problem

 

[johnb35]

It's either a jumper issue or you have a loose ide cable somewhere.

 

[aaaaaaaaaa]

Have you set jumpers for master/slave?

I don't know how to set the jumpers. Is it through the BIOS, or is it something physical you have to do with the actual jumpers?

Your drives are IDE so that could be the problem

Hmm. I believe the motherboard supports both of these drives, but I could be missing something, metaphorically speaking.

 

[StrangleHold]

If you have two drives on the same cable. The Jumpers are on the back of the drive where the connectors are. Set your main drive as Master and the other one as Slave, most are marked.

 

[aaaaaaaaaa]

I set the jumper to master. The message has changed to.

Primary Hard Disk 1 Drive Not Found
Secondary Hard Disk Drive 1 Not Found

Strike F1 to continue, F2 to go to the setup utility.....

Also, Primary Hard Disk Drive 1 is already set to Auto in the BIOS. That's the only choice you get, either "Auto", or "off".

Setup Utility >>>>
http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/dim4550/syssetup.htm#1097056

 

[aaaaaaaaaa]

Problem solved.

The OS wasn't loading because the OS on there was from my HP about 5 years ago. I hooked that hard drive up as a slave with another hard drive and I was able to safely get all my data, then reformat.

Thank you guys very much for the help.