Strange T43/p HD problem, Bios sees drive, OS does not

[JamesBurt]

I bought a computer used from EBAY, and it seems to have some kind of a problem with the disk, SATA-PATA Bridge, or connector. Has anyone got any suggestions?

James J Burt


Symptoms... hard drive or pata-sata bridge failure, hard drive not recognized, or boot sector error?



Laptop
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IBM T43/P
2668-CTO S/N L3-CFMCM 0508
Product ID 2668Y42
Windows XP Home

Bios Version: 1.22 (1YET57WW)
Bios Date: 2005-07-20
Installed Memory: 1024MB
CPU Type: Intel Pentium M
CPU Speed: 1.85Ghz


Hard Drive
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Hitachi Travelstar
Model: HTS726060M9AT00
60 GB /7200 RPM
ATA/IDE
ASM P/N: 13N6896
FRU P/N: 13N6897
LENOVO P/N: 13N6868
HITACH P/N: 0A26905


Misc
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Notebook Pro Version 2.0
Broadcom NetXtreme Ethernet Boot Agent v7.7.5



Diagnostic Notes:
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Harddisk is good, it can be read by connecting it to USB on another computer, and all files seem to be readable.


With harddisk removed, bios shows "IDE HDD0: <blank space>"
With harddisk installed, bios shows "IDE HDD0: HTS72606M9AT00-PM"

With harddisk installed:
Selecting "Access IBM" takes about 3 minutes to reveal a menu
Selecting "bios options" takes another 3 minutes to reveal a menu


In both "boot" and "Network" options, lan is disabled, boot sequence is 1-IDDHD0, 2-ATAPI-CD/DVDRW, 3-USB.


Initially, I was getting "PXE Media" error
After disabling "Boot from Lan" I get "Operating System Not Found" error

I am still not sure if it is reading from the harddisk

After changing boot sequence to 1-CD, 2-HDD0, and booting from generic (Not IBM Recovery Disk) Windows-XP-Home CD
I get "Setup did not find any hard disk drives installed in your computer...."

[richk]

It is still possible the drive is bad. If the disk is slow to respond, it will be fast enough for USB attachment. I am sometimes able to get files off a failed drive by attaching to a USB connection. You need to try a different drive or try to put this disk into a different machine to see what's wrong.

[fafaforza]

Agreed with rich.

Any time I've seen the BIOS take for ever to respond, it usually was due to a bad drive, bad IDE cable, etc.

Have you tried booting up with a Linux LiveCD (a Ubuntu install CD would do)? If it works there, it might mean there's an issue with the Windows install. But a bad drive is the more likely reason.