BIOS sometimes recognizes hard drive

[imported_Avengence]

I am upgrading a computer for a friend, its a HP 750n desktop and I went try frys and got the current deal ($50 for a 320gb IDE drive) and plugged it in. I had instant problems with it. First of all when you go into the BIOS it doesnt see it till you set it to none and then back to auto for the type of device thats connected. Second thing is sometimes when its booting it finds the drive and others it just doesnt see it at all. Its set to the main boot drive and when I go through the Windows XP initial format and install screen (where it formats and then copies files and then restarts) it restarts after its done and then when its booting it says that there invalid boot device or whatever.

So my question is, is it something wrong with the computer being old or can the drive just be flaky and I should go replace it at the store?

BTW, the computer sees the drive correctly WHEN it does see it. It gets all the information about the drive correctly, and the right model number and all.

 

[BlueAcolyte]

Either the motherboard (port) is going or the drive is going. Or the cable. Never forget the cable

If you run a hard drive test like HD Tune or a diagnostic utility and it PASSES, the problem is with the cable, drive or mobo.

 

[imported_Avengence]

I forgot to add I put the original drive back in and it works fine.

 

[imported_Avengence]

To update, I went and returned the drive and got a 160gb western digital. Same problem.

When it boots, sometimes it sees it and sometimes it doesnt. When it tries to boot from it, it gives an error. Also when it doesnt see it, during post, it says "Primary master drive fails"

 

[phoenix79]

Check the jumpers, make sure master/slave/cs is set correctly.

 

[imported_Avengence]

It is. I ended up just using the old drive in it because I coudlnt get any newer drive to work.

I had tried CS/maser/slave jumper settings and it detected it fine each time but once you restart it, it doesnt work. And sometimes even after turning it off and turning it back on still didnt fix the problem but other times it did. Not sure why it did what it did but I didnt feel like investing any more time in it than I already had.