Installing Windows 7 on a SL400

[downdog89]

When I place a new SATA NTFS formatted hard drive and boot off of my Windows 7 32-bit disc it cannot see my drive. My computer had Vista on the previous hard drive. What am I missing so I can install Windows 7 on the new hard drive?

Thank you for looking.

[Harryc]

Is the drive seen in BIOS in the startup section?

[downdog89]

Thank you moderator.

It does not show up on the BIOS.

[Harryc]

Have you installed the drive in a silver caddy with (4) screws and the rubber rails? Have you installed it (label up) in the Drive bay?
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... 72166.html
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... 72157.html

[downdog89]

Yes, I have.

I just updated the BIOS to 1.30 and it still does not show up on the BIOS.

When I hook up the hard drive to a USB hard drive device it is recognized.

Thank you.

[Harryc]

What's the manufacturer and model number of the hard drive?

[ZaZ]

Does the old drive still work?

[downdog89]

The new hard drive is a Seagate 320GB Momentus 5400.6

Yes, the old one still works.

Thank you.

[ZaZ]

If you've got another PC or notebook, you could test the drive in there.

[downdog89]

I've hooked up externally to another PC and formatted the drive to NTFS. The status of the drive was healthy in the Disk Management utility.

[Harryc]

Long shot here, but when you hook up the drive to another machine, try going into disk management and initialize the drive. Now try it in the Thinkpad.

[downdog89]

It was worth mentioning but it didn't help.

Thanks.

[Harryc]

Code: Select all

With the 5400.6 installed internally on SATA, if you boot from SeaTools for DOS CD does it see the 5400.6? If so, it's not a bad idea to run the SeaTools tests on your new drive. 

If SeaTools does NOT see your new drive, then you might try:

    Change the BIOS settings SATA mode from "compatible" to "AHCI";
    Jumper the 5400.6 to force 1.5 Gb/s.

Reference - http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/T61-and-pri ... d-p/121478

[Thinkpad Lover]

Try this- not sure if the BIOS settings are the same on an SL400 as my X60 but:

Hit F1 on startup to get into BIOS, choose CONFIG, Serial ATA and make sure it is set to "Compatibility" not "AHCI" mode.

Daniel.

[downdog89]

The SATA config setting was in AHCI mode but when I changed it to Compatibility mode the drive was still not seen.

I'll run the Seatools and let you know what happens.

I am also going to try to find another laptop to install the hard onto.

Is there a mass storage controller available for this laptop. I know I've had to do that on another laptop but I didn't see that option on the driver page.