Installing a 500 Gig Sata,Help needed

[Papa Joe Pollick]

Here's what I have to work with...
MB-MSI K8MM-
Chipset-VT8237 R
XP Pro Ver.202
Service Pack 2
AMD Sempron 2600+
Ram-1.6 Ghz
I already have a WD 250 Sata in it working fine..
I tried to add the WD 500 and I get a very faint Windows logo and it won't continue..I removed the 250 and tried to load the 500 alone..
It says no HD can be found..
Do I need to upgrade the OS to SP 3??
Any help will be greatly appreciated...Thank you...PJ...

[Stan Schober]

Is the WD500 a brand new drive ? Meaning, it's never had an operating system installed on it.

How about your power supply? How many watts is it rated at?
Multiple CD/DVD drives and two large HDD's may be more than it can handle.

Updating to SP3 would be a good idea, no matter what.

[Papa Joe Pollick]

Ya know,I thought about the power supply but then forgot that it might be the problem..It appears to be 430 W...I have CD, DVD, floppy.
It's a new HD..Matter of fact I have 2 identical and they both act the same..
I've never put it on line but I'll have to, to upgrade the OS..Means I'll have to install virus protection..Didn't want to do that..
Thanks Stan...

[Stan Schober]

you can always download SP3 on another machine and transfer it via a thumb drive or a CD.

Your power supply is certainly rated high enough to run everyting you mentioned, but the "leg" you're connecting to the new HDD may not be putting out full power. Have you tried reversing the way you have them hooked up to the PS ? Or, disconnecting the other drives temporarily?

[Wiz Feinberg]

Here's what I have to work with...
snip

XP Pro Ver.202
Service Pack 2
AMD Sempron 2600+
Ram-1.6 Ghz

snip
Do I need to upgrade the OS to SP 3??

You absolutely MUST upgrade to SP3 in order to receive ANY Windows Updates (patches, improvements, etc). SP 2 is no longer supported by Microsoft. If this machine is on the Internet and is still running XP SP2, it is probably already owned by a Bot Herder.

I already have a WD 250 Sata in it working fine..
I tried to add the WD 500 and I get a very faint Windows logo and it won't continue..I removed the 250 and tried to load the 500 alone..
It says no HD can be found.

When you say you tried to add the 500 gig hard drive, where was it plugged in? Which SATA socket? Did you insert the jumper to throttle it down to SATA 1.5? That is probably a must on old motherboards like yours. Leaving it at SATA 3.0 is an electronic mismatch if the old drive is rated and jumpered as SATA 1.5.

Also, if there is no operating system and never was on that disk, the disk is probably not even formatted. That is why no hard drive was found with only the 500 Gb connected.

[Wiz Feinberg]

I've never put it on line but I'll have to, to upgrade the OS..Means I'll have to install virus protection..Didn't want to do that..
Thanks Stan...

If you leave it offline forever, there is no need for Windows Updates, per say. However, some of the programs you install may have been updated to require files only found in SP 3 or Vista, or Windows 7.

Yes, if you put it on the Internet, it will require anti-malware protection!

It is also remotely possible that your BIOS needs to be flashed to a newer version to detect a 500 Gb hard drive.

[Papa Joe Pollick]

OK,I may have found the problem..I think the new 500 is 2nd generation and it can't run with the VT8237R chip set.Probably the 250 runs because it's probably 1st generation..That means I'll need a PCI SATA controler card..
Thanks for the responce Wiz..

[Papa Joe Pollick]

Wiz,You said to throttle it down to 1.5 with a jumper..Do I jump pins 5 and 6 to do that?? Thanks...PJ...

[Stan Schober]

Wiz,You said to throttle it down to 1.5 with a jumper..Do I jump pins 5 and 6 to do that?? Thanks...PJ...

Yup, that should be the correct ones.

[Papa Joe Pollick]

Thanks Stan..
Wiz,Thanks for the tip on jumper setting..
It's now formatting the 500..Looks like it might work..

[Stan Schober]

If it's formatting, you should be good to go.

Look at all the different "possible problems" we came up with...it's no wonder computers drive some folks to drink.

[Wiz Feinberg]

I learned about the SATA speed jumper issues while building computers in Benton, Arkansas, in the summer of 2007. I was involved in building 1100 PCs, many of which used SATA drives that required the 1.5 jumper, others of which required it to be removed. I was told that the wrong jumper setting would either affect performance on newer boards, or cause a failure to boot, or random crashes on older ones. Jumpers on hard drives ARE rocket science!

[Papa Joe Pollick]

Rocket science eh? S'pose NASA will be callin' me? NAW...
Anyway, everything loaded right up..Only thing I needed to load was the Delta 44 sound card..But now I have no icons on the desktop.Gotta figure that one out now..Any ideas??

[Stan Schober]

Right click on the desktop and

GoTo > Arrange icons by > show desktop icons

see if there's a check still there.

[Papa Joe Pollick]

Yeah, I found it Stan..Thanks..Actually right click/properties/desktop and they're there..Got everything workin' great..Now I'm waiting for my BIAB 2011 USB disk..Should be here Wed..I'll load it all to my HD and archive the USB...That's why I wanted the big drive..Thanks for all your help...PJ..

[Stan Schober]

Glad we could help.
3 heads are better than 1.