Seagate 160 GB SATA Nightmare! HELP!

[josephclange]

Hi all-- Hopefully someone can help.

I have a Dell Inspiron 8600, 2ghz, 1 gb RAM. I recently bought a
Serial ATA PCMCIA card so i could hookup a Seagate Barracuda 160 GB
drive. It is an internal 3.5" drive that i am running externally- with
an enclosure.

I went through all the Disk Wizard setup with no problem - it said i
formatted the drive and everything should be peachy. But when i try to
access the drive through Windows XP, it says it is not formatted. I
have tried many times to format it through Disk Manager, but it is
extremely slow... (only 23% OVERNIGHT).

All drivers are current, and cannot be updated. I have also gone to
the dell.com site and updated my BIOS - but to no avail. The PCMCIA
card seems to work fine-- the drive is recognized but it is seen as
formatted.

Another thing-- when the SATA cables are hooked up and i restart, my
laptop stalls on the "Windows XP with scrolling status bar" and will
stay there forever, until i power down, and disconnect the cable.

I can't seem to crack this one. Any options?

 

[Pennywise]

Hi all-- Hopefully someone can help.

I have a Dell Inspiron 8600, 2ghz, 1 gb RAM. I recently bought a
Serial ATA PCMCIA card so i could hookup a Seagate Barracuda 160 GB
drive. It is an internal 3.5" drive that i am running externally- with
an enclosure.

I went through all the Disk Wizard setup with no problem - it said i
formatted the drive and everything should be peachy. But when i try to
access the drive through Windows XP, it says it is not formatted. I
have tried many times to format it through Disk Manager, but it is
extremely slow... (only 23% OVERNIGHT).

All drivers are current, and cannot be updated. I have also gone to
the dell.com site and updated my BIOS - but to no avail. The PCMCIA
card seems to work fine-- the drive is recognized but it is seen as
formatted.

Another thing-- when the SATA cables are hooked up and i restart, my
laptop stalls on the "Windows XP with scrolling status bar" and will
stay there forever, until i power down, and disconnect the cable.

I can't seem to crack this one. Any options?

Seagate's exclusive disc drive diagnostic software designed to
troubleshoot most hard drive issues.
http://www.seagate.com/support/disc/utils.html

 

[josephclange]

I've tried that before-- everything is fine. anything else?

Thanks- the help is much appreciated.

-------

 

[Pennywise]

I've tried that before-- everything is fine. anything else?

Nope that was best guess.

Seeing as it works if you don't boot up with it connected, I would
think it's using generic drivers.

 

[Anna]

Hi all-- Hopefully someone can help.

I have a Dell Inspiron 8600, 2ghz, 1 gb RAM. I recently bought a
Serial ATA PCMCIA card so i could hookup a Seagate Barracuda 160 GB
drive. It is an internal 3.5" drive that i am running externally- with
an enclosure.

I went through all the Disk Wizard setup with no problem - it said i
formatted the drive and everything should be peachy. But when i try to
access the drive through Windows XP, it says it is not formatted. I
have tried many times to format it through Disk Manager, but it is
extremely slow... (only 23% OVERNIGHT).

All drivers are current, and cannot be updated. I have also gone to
the dell.com site and updated my BIOS - but to no avail. The PCMCIA
card seems to work fine-- the drive is recognized but it is seen as
formatted.

Another thing-- when the SATA cables are hooked up and i restart, my
laptop stalls on the "Windows XP with scrolling status bar" and will
stay there forever, until i power down, and disconnect the cable.

I can't seem to crack this one. Any options?

josephclange:
1. I'm assuming from your description that your 160 GB SATA HD has been
installed in an external enclosure that provides direct SATA-to-SATA
capability.

2. You say that when the SATA (data) cables are "hooked up" your laptop
"stalls" and you have to power down and disconnect the SATA HD. If that is
so, how were you able to partition & format the SATA HD in the first place?

3. You state "the PCMCIA card seems to work fine -- the drive is recognized
but it is seen as formatted." I assume you mean it is NOT seen as formatted,
yes? And if you're not able to boot while the SATA HD is connected, how can
you tell that the drive is "recognized"?

Perhaps I misunderstand you. If you wish, please clarify and we can go on
from here if you want.
Anna

 

[josephclange]

Hi Anna - I replied back to this posting but I believe it sent to your
email.