New Hard Drive Hardly Wants to Work

Did you try to Boot your system with a Windows boot disk? Partition, Format, Install OS? or is it that your system will not start at all?T

ATA/100 DMA drives are IDE drives that support burst modes and 100 Mb/sec transfer rates of data allow with direct memory access.

Assuming that you have the power and data connections correct (see:http://www.pcmech.com/hdindex.htm for general help and installation tips)and you don't have a drive that is dead in the water the issue may be that you motherboard and BIOS is incompatible with ATA 100 drives.

It still may be possible to use the drives by setting it to a lower standard either ATA 66 or ATA 33 depending on whether you motherboard and BIOS support either one of these as well.

Consult the documentation for your motherboard or the manufacturers web site to determine which it will support and how to set this in your BIOS.

Most ATA 100 drives can be set to a lower standard if the ATA 100 standard is not supported by your computer.

Seagate drives need the utility (UATA100d.exe) in order to be toggled from one standard or another. It can be found on their site at:

http://www.seagate.com/support/disc/drivers/index.html

Some info regarding ATA 100 Segate drives in general can be found at:

http://www.seagate.com/support/kb/disc/ultra_ata100.html

Actually the problem is probably related to the fact that your BIOS may not recognize a drive that large.

You may need to download a new one.

BIOS
http://www.wimsbios.com/
http://www.ping.be/bios/numbersami.shtml
http://www.motherboards.org/ubb/Forum2/HTML/
or check the motherboard manufacturers website.

Also- Check the seagate support site for a utility to test your drive.

If you can not get a newer bIOS, you may be forced to use the Seagate Overlay program that emulates a newer BIOS.

Also read the DOCS that came with the drive and any software that was included.

I hope this helps !

Wouldn't a fairly recent motherboard/system have a bios that would recognize this size hard drive?  I forgot to mention that the computer itself is only about a year old and has an AMD Thunderbird 1 GIG processor.  So, it's not like we're talking an old 486 or something.  Of course, this may have nothing to do with it.  As for what motherboard I have, well, I'll have to do some hunting for the manuals.  I'll also check some of the links above. Thanks!

Perhaps if I give more information about what's happening it may help.
After I turn on the computer it does the memory check. After THAT is where it freezes. It says "WAIT.....", but then nothing ever happens.  And this is what confuses me. Shouldn't it go to the floppy drive to look for a boot disk, regardless of anything going on with the hard drive? Or am I wrong there?

Just to let you know, I put the old hard drive back in and everything is working fine. Just thought I'd toss that out there as I was beginning to wonder if the problem was something else since I couldn't even get past where it checks the memory and says "WAIT...".  I thought "what if it's an electrical problem since the light to the hard drive and floppy drive (both on the same wires) don't come on. BUT since I put the old drive in and it works, I'm back to that it is DEFINITELY the hard drive.  
Now, I WOULD set it for MASTER/SINGLE jumper, wouldn't I? It's the only drive in the computer and nothing else is on it's ribbon cable.  Just what the heck is "Cable Select" anyway? Do I get to choose between HBO and CINEMAX?  The only reason I'm curious is because on my old Western Digital drive, the MASTER setting is some kind of vertical setting, but the way it came in the box and the way I left it was some odd horizontal setting for the jumper. And it works.

The "cable select" setting seems to become more and more common. This requires the drives to be jumpered for "CS" and then the position on the IDE cable determines which drive becomes which. This seems to be associated with 80 lead cables. The master is at the position farthest away from the controller and the slave goes in the middle position. The connectors are in three different colours, too and the cable has a designated "controller end" (as opposed to the older 40 lead cables).

So, first verify the drive master/slave configuration options (jumper settings), connect the cable correctly and make sure the drive is recognized in BIOS. Even if BIOS cannot handle the size, it should see the max size it can hadle, shouldn't it? That's how it used to work, anyway...

Regards
/RID

If there is only a single drive it is less important- The Western Digital drives have always been good at working out ot the box.
I would check te settings on the Seagate. If it is by itself use either Master/single or C/S ( cable select).

Even recent BIOS's may have problems with an 80 GB drive, so check for a newer one or make sure the old one can handle this sized drive.

I hope this helps !

When you enter the bios what does it say for the harddrive you have installed, is it set to auto?
Does it recognize on bootup and identifiy the harddrive? It doesn't sound like you have it set to auto, I don't think its seeing the drive or at least not seeing it properly.

Bios.  So, how do I check/change that?  Is it something I can change while the old hard drive is in, before I put in the new one?  Do I hold down a key when I boot up to get to some kind of menu?
Because if it has anything to do with putting a new bios or utility on a floppy disk, that won't work, because the only thing that happens when I turn on the computer (with the new drive)is it goes into memory check, where the numbers flying by look like the scoreboard for the Detroit Tigers opponents, and then after that it says "WAIT..." and then nothing.  It doesn't even try to peek at the floppy drive to see if I have any scrumpcious goodies for it.
So if there is a way to change the BIOS settings, could you pretend I'm a complete moron (not a big stretch there) and go step by step as how to change it to handle the ATA/100 drive (or to at least see that it's there).
Thanks!

Oh! Oh! Something new I discovered. (Hate to keep posting all this junk, but perhaps it's all clues that will lead to the bigger puzzle - kind of like Columbo without the cigar).  
With my old drive in, I thought I would wander around the setup and see if the BIOS had anything that mentioned "auto" settings and the like, so on start up where it says "Hit DEL key to enter set up" I did so, but it only bypassed the rest of set up and went to the desktop. Tried it a couple times...nothing.  Then I tried hitting the F8 key during start up. Still nothing  THEN I put in a boot disk ... and found that it never even looked at it during start up! Went right past it to the Windows 98 screen, then to the desktop. The floppy drive didn't do anything at all during startup, and I know THAT ain't right! So I thought, maybe the floppy drive is dead? But after start up I can totally access the floppy drive, it reads data on it, the light comes on, everything. It's just during start up that it doesn't get accessed. And remember..this is with the OLD hard drive in, the one that works.  Could this "glitch" during start up have anything to do with the new drive having difficulty getting recognized during start up?

Each BIOS is a little different in how you gain entry into it for editing purposes for general information on the BIOS see:  http://www.pcmech.com/bios.htm

But from your discription you either have a dead drive or a cabling issue either with the power cable or the data cable or how you have the drive set (master/slave etc.) since your drive is not spinning etc.

See:  http://www.seagate.com/support/npf/disc_ata/flowchart_ata.html for a step by step diagnostic process for Seagate drives.

See: http://www.seagate.com/support/seatools/B7a.html for a utility to check Seagate drives.

ascoredhat: IMHO, the first step is to hold down the del key if that is what it is saying or F2, when you first boot does it say to enter setup hit a certain key? This is also where you can enable the floppy drive to be read first, yours appears to be disabled. Before you jump on anything being bad you need to make sure the bios setup is setup properly. It is sounding more and more like this may be your problem. We are not talking about flahing the bios or anything like that, we are only trying to enter the bios setup and under standed you should see if yours is set to auto under the harddrive, you will also see a boot sequence, you can change that if you so desire for floppy first then harddrive or cd-rom, whatever you want. Dave

Based on what I've read so far here, I would say that your BIOS is not set properly to identify, and so to work with, your new hard drive. It could be set to work with only your old drive, but not the new one. This is easy to fix.

You have to figure out how to get into the BIOS setup program. You do that by pressing a special key or key combination as your computer is booting up. From what you've said, it appears that pressing the DEL key is what will do it. Install the drive. Start pressing the DEL key as soon as you see something on your monitor after you turn on your computer, and keep pressing it every half second or so until you are taken into the setup program. (Of course, if your setup program needs another key stroke to start up, then you'll have to figure out what it is and use it.)
 
Once in the setup program, look for the section that lets the BIOS detect your drive.  Before you attach the drive you'll want to make sure it is jumpered to be a single drive (assuming you don't have another hard drive or CD drive attached to its cable), and that the cable is attached properly. (It looks like you have done this already, but it needs to be doublechecked.)  Your BIOS should detect your drive and properly identify its parameters/configuration. If it doesn't get properly identified you may need a BIOS upgrade.

An alternative to the BIOS upgrade route is to purchase and install a Promise controller into an empty PCI slot. It has a much better chance of getting things working properly, if the problem is your BIOS not being able to identify your drive.

It's also possible that the drive is not working for some reason not related to your existing computer. The best way to determine that is to stick it into a system that is known to be able to handle drives that big and see if it works there.

You may also have to make sure that your motherboard is set to work with a DMA drive on the primary IDE channel. Many BIOS setup programs let you toggle that on or off.

I'm finally in!  I followed the advice and tried again with the new drive by hitting the DEL key over and over when I first powered it up and got into the AMIBIOS menu. From there I went to the CMOS setup and hit F3 for it to look for the HD. Sure enough it found it. Then I restarted and put in the Seagate DiscWizard disc and got started.

But THEN (damn, why can't anything be easy?) a box came up saying "Trend ChipAway Virus has detected a boot virus on your hard disk".  

Could there be a virus on a brand new hard disk?  Should I just go ahead and continue with the setup?  If there is really a boot sector virus, how do I get rid of it?
Thanks!

I doubt that there is really a boot virus on your hard drive if it is indeed new. Rather, the "virus detector" in the CMOS program is seeing that there has been a change in the way it is seeing the hard drive, and it is attributing that change to a virus rather than to a new drive. I'd just go ahead at this point and see if Windows will install, and if it does I wouldn't worry about Trend's claim of a virus.

I concur, in fact I always disable the on-board virus protection, but that is user preference. It can give you other problems also. I would now go for it, I would not use the diskmanager to manage the harddrive unless your machine will not recognize the size and you already stated it found it. Dave

The Eagle has landed!

I've gotten 'er up and going, got Win98 onto it and am now just in the process of fixing all the usual glitches that come up with starting all over with a drive (display, sound problems - but I am working on getting the proper drivers in place).

All the responses I got were excellent.  Just turns out that the pressing of the DEL key immediately at start up and getting into the BIOS settings was what it was waiting for me to do.  Once I got into there and got it to find the drive, I was able to reboot it to find the DiscWizard, and the rest is history. The drive is working (and the "virus" warning is gone, so that was another good call that is was only because it was a new drive and stuff).

I figured I'd better go ahead and close out this one. If I have any more problems that I can't figure out in getting the new hard drive's driver issues resolved, I'll just post a new query.

I wish I could give points to everyone who responded, as you are all very kind to have taken your time to help out someone in need.
But since it's only set up to give points to one person, to everyone else I can only offer my deepest gratitude.

Thanks again everyone for all your great assistance!
~Dave

Oops. The previous post was meant to go into the "Accept as Answer" post and not the regular one. Sorry about that.

Again, thanks to all who responded.

Even though I think you picked the wrong comment for the answer (Don't worry, points do not matter to me) SYSexpert did not tell you to make any changes in the bios to detect your harddrive! hehehe
Best of luck to you ascoredhat, you did a great job in recovering from this curve. :>) Dave

I think Sysexpert owes you the points Dave!

:>) Not a big thing, I would have thought they have been here long enough to have said something. :>)

ascoredhat  : since you are not familiar with splitting points, I will help out.

emery800 : I am posting a Q for you here to collect 1/2 the points, since you did make a major contribution.

https://www.experts-exchange.com/jsp/qManageQuestion.jsp?ta=hardgen&qid=20292877

Thank you, SysExpert.  As I said, you all gave excellent advice and emery800 was certainly a huge contributor now that I read over the postings more closely.  

I guess the reason I ended up giving the points to SysExpert was that I was deeply frustrated in that I knew I had to change the bios SOMEHOW, but just couldn't figure out how to get into the menu in the first place as the startup would freeze immediately after the memory check before looking for any kind of boot disk, etc.  Once I did the pressing the DEL key repeatedly upon powering on, suddenly I found myself in the menu and knew that I finally could do SOMETHING to get the computer to find the hard drive.

I'm glad that points could be split as emery800 deserves credit for getting me up and going. Even if points don't mean anything, the principle is that when credit is due it should be given.
Thanks again.

Thanks Sysexpert for standing up and making sure this site works correctly.
ascoredhat: Don't worry about it, the objective at this site is get the questioner running and we work as a team doing that, the experts know the system and this often happens and the experts work it out. I for one am just glad you found the resolution to your problem and as I indicated it isn't the points its the principle and as long as experts work together then we can help you better and faster in resolving your problems. Enjoy! dave