Here's a little poser for you Boffins, I have inherited A Dell Pentium 3, with a crapped hard drive, I have bought another hard drive from a running machine, so I know it is ok.
I have installed it, but but says eigther there is no hard drive, the hard drive is corrupted, or it needs a hard drive driver (which I have never heard of). I did an Fdisk on it, and got the report that there were no fixed drives.
I have checked all the connections, and can't find anything wrong, is there anything else I can try?, I just want to use it as a simple backup, no internet or anything, I don't want to let it get me beat, and I have plenty of time to spare, so, come on lads, get your thinking caps on !
Thanks in advance

Did you borrow the hard drive from an XP system? Fdisk usually will not recognize a NTFS drive.

Are you using Dell software to recover? It also probably will not recognize a NTFS drive.

Download and run DelPart. It will delete all partitioning.

http://www.russelltexas.com/delpart.htm

You might have to go to the Dell site and get a utility to prepare the drive for the Dell recovery software.

Sorry, I do not check for private messages

You need to get into the BIOS and make sure it is detected by the BIOS first, you will not get anywhere and do anything else such as fdisk, format, etc. until the drive is properly detected in the BIOS.

"I have installed it, but but says eigther there is no hard drive, the hard drive is corrupted,...."

What says? The POST screen? A removable boot media program?

"I did an Fdisk on it, and got the report that there were no fixed drives."

There's three possibilities; It isn't physically set up correctly, it's beyond the machines bios capabilities, or it's dead.

"You need to .... make sure it is detected by the BIOS (and shows up in the POST) first, you will not get anywhere "

It's a good day when you learn something

How large is the drive?

Insulting the members here probably won't get you much help. Or, do you indeed really know the full meaning of the term you used to describe the users of this site?

Unless of course you're British. In which case you probably don't know the term is considered derogatory in the US.

Soylent Green is PEOPLE!!!

Looks fine to me.

"Boffins": (Bôf ' ns) noun - the name for scientists and scholars working quietly to develop new and exciting techniques and skills.

But that's sure not us. We are all average guys and gals doing our best to keep our heads above water and maybe occasionally helping someone out. :-)

Sorry, I do not check for private messages

I suspect the poster meant well and was just trying to be friendly.

The other sort usually make it very obvious.

DerekW

What model is this? Some Dells need cable select rather than master/slave jumper settings.

BIOS recognition is first. If not, it will never work in WIndows. If not recognized, there are other issues, if the jumpers are set appropriately.