New hardrive HELP!!

[Robsothegreat]

Hi everyone i have a hitachi HTS721060G9AT00 60gig (new)and i cant get it to boot off the xp pro cd.I think i need to format it first but how can i do that when i cant get past the PXE-E61 and PXE-MOF screen?
I have set the bios to boot from cd first,as well as re set the bios to de-fault.And still nothing.My other unrealiable harddrive works fine when i put it back in (it crashes occasionally)
Help!!!

Sorry i have a T23 with 512 ram running xp pro.

[Harryc]

My guess is that the new HD is defective. The message you are getting is the same one you'd get if no hard drive was installed..try it.

[rkawakami]

It's also possible that your optical drive (or CD) is defective. If the BIOS has indeed been altered to boot from the CD first before the hard drive, and if the hard drive is "new" (no OS installed), then the PXE screen will appear if the CD doesn't boot.

Try this: do not load any CD or DVD disk in the optical drive. Install the new Hitachi hard drive. Boot the system and access the BIOS. Look in the Startup menu, Boot option. You should see:

Removable Devices
CD-ROM Drive
+Hard Drive
IBA 4.0.22 Slot 0240

(The CD and Hard Drive entries may be in a different order depending upon how you've set them). Highlight the "+Hard Drive" entry (use the arrow keys) and press the "Enter" key. Do you see an HTS721060G9AT00 entry? If so, then the BIOS can "see" the drive and you should be able to install an OS.

Next thing to try would be to see if you can boot any bootable CD. If you can't then there's a problem with your optical drive (or media).

[Robsothegreat]

The other thing that i have thought of, is can i make some boot disc`s on floppy and try to boot that way,and then put in the xp pro disc??
Because i have a floppy drive option as well.

[nikki605]

Have you tried to run the Hitachi Drive Fitness Test (DFT)? I used it when I upgraded my original IBM 20GB HDD to a new Hitachi (see my sig info).

Download and instructions are here:

http://www.hgst.com/hdd/support/download.htm#DFT

[RealBlackStuff]

You have only one bay, for either a floppy OR a CD/DVD (or a HD-adapter).
You need to make syre that your CD/DVD works first, like Ray said.

[Robsothegreat]

i`ve just tried the old harddrive and it didn`t boot from the cd/dvd drive.Even though i set the bios to start from the cd.Maybe you are right that the dvd drive is faulty.But i can still watch movies?However i have just put in a cd and media player can`t read it.Maybe i need to update the cd/dvd drivers.??

[rkawakami]

Drivers will not help with an optical drive that has trouble booting (yech... that's pretty bad sentence structure ). Okay, how about this: if your optical drive has a problem with being able to recognize a CD, yet reads a DVD fine, then changing drivers will not help. Neither will it help if you are trying to boot from the drive since those Windows drivers will never be used anyway.

Your best bet would be to try a couple of different CDs while in Windows. Commercial music CDs, data CDs (like an install program), even any CD-R or CD-RW disks that you have. If you can't read some or any CDs but you can read DVDs, then I'd say your drive has a (fairly common) problem with a defective laser pickup.

Any chance you can swap in another Ultrabay 2000 optical drive?

[Robsothegreat]

All i have is a spare floppy drive.

[rkawakami]

You could try gently cleaning the laser pickup lens on the drive with a clean, lint-free (if possible) cloth. A little bit of isopropyl (rubbing) alcohol can be used on the cloth. Don't press down too hard on the lens assembly; just a couple of easy wipes across the face of the lens and see if that helps to read CDs.

If it still does not read CDs, then you're left with obtaining another Ultrabay 2000 optical drive, either borrowed or purchased.

[Robsothegreat]

Thanks for all the help guys.I gave it a clean and it still won`t read cd`s.I will try and find another drive and give that a go.

[Robsothegreat]

Okay so work this one out.I borrowed another drive and i loaded xp pro onto the new 60gig drive and then i put the old dvd drive back in and low and behold it will play cd`s????This thing is doing my head in!!But at least i now have 60gig of much faster space.I did however rush out and put a bid on another dvd drive on ebay.So who knows i might end up with 2 good dvd drives!!
Thanks for all the help you guys are great.
I like to think that i have saved another T23 from the junk pile!

Cheers.