This should be an easy one for the putery types on here!
I have obtained a Dell GX270 from work and it was running fine when I unplugged it. However, the gaffer took the hard drives out of all the machines but as I have a couple of hd already loaded with an O S I thought I could just pop one of those in and make it work. What I'm looking at is a "SATA primary drive not found" message.
Any suggestions?

Is it a SATA drive you've fitted and have you found it in BIOS?

its late but I can think of a couple of possibilities:

I'm guessing it used to have a SATA drive in it and you have have plugged in a PATA drive, this should be ok but you would need to adjust the bios settings to recognise the new drive.

You have plugged a SATA drive into the secondary port, try changing the SATA port its plugged into to the lowest port number.

If its a SATA drive you've plugged in, the motherboard may require the drive limiting to 1.5MB/s which is just a jumper setting on the back of the drive.

The drive you plugged in is dead? do you have another machine to test it on?

Once you get the PC to recognise the drive there is no guarantee (assuming its Windows) that the OS will boot, I've had varied success with booting PCs with an OS configured for another machine but its worth a go.

Hope this helps.

Muh?
Sorry for being stupid, but I havn't a clue! Whilst clumsying around the 'diagnostics' thingy in bios, the Maxton hd appears as a IDE drive, whatever that is...

In BIOS, check Boot sequence, and make sure your PATA (PATA = IDE) drive is enabled for booting (it'll have a number next to it if it's enabled). To enable/disable just hit space when it's selected in the boot sequence. Lower in the menu, under drives, just make sure that it's enabled.

One thing is that IDE drives can be set to Master or Slave (or auto select). It may be that your drive is set to Slave, and should be Master, but this is unlikely if it was previously used as the primary OS drive.

There seems to be only one port on the motherboard for the hd to plug into. The other port has the dvd drive in it.....
I'll try tomorrow with less tiredness in my eyes.
Cheers guys.

Sounds like the drive you've plugged in is an IDE (aka PATA) drive, whereas the BIOS settings are looking for a SATA drive.
You need to go into the BIOS (normally press DEL or F12 during bootup) and change the setting so that it boots from your IDE drive rather than looking for a SATA drive.

Also, if you're plugging into the same ribbon cable as the CD/DVD drive, you will need to check the jumpers on the new hard drive and the CD drive. There will be settings such as 'Master', 'Slave', and 'CS' or 'Cable select'.


If you set both drives to 'CS' then the PC will decide which is master or slave depending on which connector you use for which device on the ribbon cable. Normally there are blue, black, and grey connectors as shown below:


Of course, it's probably easier just to keep your CD/DVD connected to one of the motherboard ports and connect you hard drive to the other port using a separate cable.

Hope this helps!

Ed.

[Edited on 25/7/11 by Madinventions]

Press F2 to get into the Dell bios, not the keys mentioned above. All your answers have been posted above but reply back if you want step by step instructions....or indeed spare parts. I have a pie of Gx270's at work!

Repeating what Ed has correctly said but in principal there's two different hard drive connections on the 270. The hard drive used to be connected to the newer type (sata) but you've connected the replacement to ide (pata and older type). You need to disable Bios booting from the newer drive type and enable it to boot from your ide drive.

As said I can supply some precise step by step if needed?

Looks like I need the pillocks guide.......
I have the IDE thingy and I can't find where to switch off the sata!
Even if I go to 'SATA PRIMARY DRIVE' and switch it to off, it gives me the 'I'm not playing' message!

Keep in mind many versions of XP install CDs won't recognise or install from SATA drives unless you make a copy of the install CD patched to include SATA drivers.

quote:

---

Originally posted by owelly
Looks like I need the pillocks guide.......
I have the IDE thingy and I can't find where to switch off the sata!
Even if I go to 'SATA PRIMARY DRIVE' and switch it to off, it gives me the 'I'm not playing' message!

---

Righto...

Set-up:
Drive Configuration
SATA Primary Drive....OFF
Primary Master Drive....Hard Drive
Primary Slave .....OFF
Secondary Master Drive...OFF
Secondary Slave Drive....OFF

IDE Drive UDMA...On.

Hard-Disk Drive Sequence
1.System BIOS boot devices
2.USB device (not installed)

Boot Sequence
<Ticked>1.Hard Disk Drive C:
<Ticked>2.Diskette drive
<Ticked>3.CD-ROM Device (not installed)
<Ticked>4.Integrated NIC (disabled)

Boot Device Menu:>
6.IDE Drive Diagnostics:
Primary SATA. Drive 0:No device
Secondary SATA. Drive 0: No device
Primary IDE. Drive 0: Maxtor 2B020H1

So that's what I'm looking at at the moment! I have been clattering about in the BIOS so goodness knows what else I've fecked-up!
Cheers for any help

"http://locostbuilders.co.uk/photos.php?action=gal&user=McLannahan&folder=Owelly Dell"

Hope that helps - Have u2'd you too with some instructions. I'll leave this GX270 powered up this week if you need more images/help!

All the best

[Edited on 15/8/11 by McLannahan]


Copy and paste the link. Stupidly inserted a space in the folder title and I'm bugg'd if I'm doing all that uploading and naming again !

[Edited on 15/8/11 by McLannahan]