Tek-Tips is the largest IT community on the Internet today!

Members share and learn making Tek-Tips Forums the best source of peer-reviewed technical information on the Internet!

Register Log in
  • Congratulations SkipVought on being selected by the Tek-Tips community for having the most helpful posts in the forums last week. Way to Go!

Adding a second hard disk to Dell 5150 1

Status
Not open for further replies.
xwb

xwb

Programmer
Jul 11, 2002
6,828
0
36
GB
A relatative has a Dell 5150. He's added a second hard disk to it. The problem is the the disk isn't being picked up. Is there a jumper setting or BIOS setting somethere that tells the system that there is a second disk? The layout at the back of the motherboard is something like this. There are 4 L shaped keyed connectors that connect to the SATA drives.
Code: 
     ===== USB ribbon

       L  <- original disk blue cable
       L  <- CD orange cable

       L  <- new disk cable
       L  <- empty

     : |  <- yellow jumper
If I swap the new disk cable with the CD, it picks up the disk. It looks like the second set of connectors is disabled. Any idea what should be done to enable them?
 
Sort by date Sort by votes
I believe those letter Ls are for SATA connectors on the motherboard in your diagram - is that correct?

If those are SATA drives, then you shouldn't have to configure anything at all. Is the CD SATA as well??

Maybe a real picture would help and what the motherboard says on it - like model number.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
According to the manual it is SATA...

Manual

hook everything back up the way it was...

SATA Port 0 = main drive
SATA Port 1 = CD ROM/DVD
SATA Port 2 = NEW drive
SATA Port 3 = leave empty

power on the PC, and go into the BIOS (System Setup), there on the left side you will see a menu with DRIVE 0 to DRIVE 3, navigate to DRIVE 2 and ENABLE the port... EXIT the BIOS, and save the settings...

The drive should now show up under Windows Drive Management, where you can partition and format it...


Ben

"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."

How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Thanks for the manual. I was looking for one but couldn't find it on the Dell site.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Just had a scan through the manual. Looks like the other two SATA connectors are just dummies. They're not mentioned at all in the document. No surprise that they don't get picked up by the BIOS.

The configuration is either 2 SATA disks and 1 IDE CD/DVD or 1 SATA disk and 1 SATA CD/DVD. Doesn't look like it supports 2 SATA disks and 1 SATA CD/DVD.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
I'll suggest 2 SATA drives and 1 IDE DVD since the relative has a few PC corpses lying around. Recycling body parts isn't a problem.

Should have seen his face lighting up when he moved the memory sticks across and got 2Gb. To us, it is nothing but to a computer illiterate, it is magic.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
It was actually an E520: not a 5150. Apparently the covers had been changed. Got the E520 manual from the support site. Looks like this one has 4 sata and no IDE. Just needs enabling from the BIOS as you said.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
That makes much more sense. I really don't understand why you have to manually enable each sata port on some machines. I'll bet that's screwed up a lot of people that plug in an additional drive.

I'm wondering if there's a technical reason that it's done that way or if it's just the choice of the BIOS designer to make it that way.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
It is probably so that the manufacturers can give the engineer something to do when he comes out to install a new drive.

Remember the old IBMs which used to come with 20Mb drives of which only 10Mb was enabled (this was in the mid 70s). The engineers came with a new drive but didn't install it. They ran all sorts of tests and then, just before lunch, they'd open up the cabinet and flick a switch. And that was it: job done. Basically the customer paid for an upgrade and got the same disk back with double the capacity.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

dik
  • Locked
  • Question
Hard Disk Storage 3
Replies
10
Views
92
dik
dik
pmonett
  • Locked
  • Question
Need to change OS on HP laptop 1
Replies
10
Views
204
Rick998
Rick998
hikermann
  • Locked
  • Question
How to Assign Action to F1 Key 1
Replies
3
Views
148
kjv1611
kjv1611
laoadam
  • Locked
  • Question
external hard drive does not recognized
Replies
3
Views
81
Stephen_Hawk
Stephen_Hawk
Keyboy
  • Locked
  • Question
Dell Vostro Touchpad Issue
Replies
2
Views
83
Rick998
Rick998

Part and Inventory Search

Sponsor

Back
Top