My Hard Drive wont boot!

[FurQ]

I am trying to upgrade the hard drive in my dell optiplex gx300.
the original drive is a 3gb IBM, which I am trying to replace with a 20gb Maxtor.
With the new hd connected, I get the BIOS loading bar, but it locks at the end, requiring a reboot. I cant even get into the BIOS with the hard drive attached.
With the old drive connected, it gets past the BIOS loading bar, but wont detect the drive. I have checked the jumpers, and tried the drive in another machine, and it all checked out, but it simply wont detect in the optiplex. Does anyone have any suggestions as to why the new drive wont work in my Optiplex? The only thing I can think is that the MB is knackered, but I had it working yesterday!!

All help is appreciated

 

[tlcscousin]

The BIOS might not be adequate for that big a drive. You might need a BIOS flash. Also check that the drive is set to the proper jumper. If it is the master, set it to master.I had a similar problem last week when I put in a larger drive and ended up changing the jumper to cable select and it found and allowed using the new drive.

 

[FurQ]

thanks for the reply,

but I have already tried to flash the BIOS (its now version A10). Whenever the drive is connected (and its connected correctly) the bios simply wont pick up any drive now! I cant see anything obvious on the motherboard that could have been changed that would cause this problem, and have tried the drives in question on all of their jumper settings!!

someone please help!!

 

[wolluf]

Have you tried contacting Dell? If drive's ok, the bios should definitely recognise it.

 

[Maledicere]

Have you tried checking those drives on the other IDE controller and/or in another system? Does the same problem come up in either scenerio? Could just be that controller could be fried.

 

[FurQ]

thanks for all the replies everyone.

I tried the ide cable in the other channel, and tried a different cable (also in both channels), but sadly to no avail.

I was hoping there would be something simple I had missed, or something that was unique to Dells only, but it looks as though I will have to rebuild it from the ground up until I find out exactly what the issue is.

I suspect it may be the processor or even the memory.

Thanks again all.