I need help on installing a 160GB hdd into my old dell dimension 3100. I stuck the hdd in, which is sata, and connected the cables and power stuff. But when I turn on the PC, windows does not load. What happens is that it just stays on the first screen, the BIOS screen. I need to know how to make the new 160GB the secondary drive, and the first one the primary drive. In other words how do I set up the BIOS for a dell dimension 3100.
Hi, Things have changed since the introduction of SATA. Not only do we have faster drives, better performance and slimmer cables, we also have ease of setup! You no longer have to set drives as Masters / Slaves, you only have to run the drives from teh numbered ports. Your M/B will number each SATA port from 1-2 or 1-4 (or even more). Simply plug your extra drive in the next available slot! Try removing the primary drive (your old one) and put the new one on its own in SATA1. Try booting from that, and if it boots further and says "primary boot or system disk failure" then you know it is seeing the drive, and there is a conflict running both. Then you know to check the BIOS for IDE / SATA controller priorities. This is where you can define which controller takes priority and which is seen as the first boot priority etc. If you get no where with this and your PC doesn't see it in BIOS or try booting when its the selected and only device, then you probably have an old BIOS and could do with updating it, or you have a faulty drive. If however it does see the drive, then you could either install a fresh copy of windows, and plug your older drive back in later and pulling your data off it, or you could put it back the way it is and tweak the BIOS / disk management to get it working. Either way get back to us and let us know how you get on.
UPDATE: When I connect the new hdd I want to install, the BIOS cant find the new Hitachi Deskstar 160GB hdd even if it is the only Hdd connected.
