Trying Upgrade Dell Lattitude CPiA HDD

[grogk]

I am trying to upgrade my Dell Lattitude HDD to a larger drive. On the Dell support site, there is a utility to update the Eide bios for Hitachi 20 /30 /40 HDD's. However, the machine came with a 6gb IBM Travelstor drive and I have a replacement 20gb IBM drive that has already been used in a Hitatchi Laptop and is loaded with data and Win XP Pro. When I put that drive into the Dell, all I get is a blinking dot in the upper left corner of the screen.

Other HDD's that are smaller work fine. As I think more about it, is this an issue with XP as it changes hardware and doesn't like it?

I upgraded the system bios to A15 from A14. Any ideas or has someone been here before?

Thanks

Greg

 

[wolluf]

Do you mean you're trying to boot XP from the 20Gb drive from another machine? Then, yes it will be an issue of different hardware and drivers. There are various approaches you could try, but best to install XP on the drive in the laptop (after backing data up of course). You could try a repair reinstall (

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;315341).

Saves data, apps & settings, loses windows updates, and may correctly load (enough of) correct drivers to get you up and running.

 

[grogk]

To clarify, Basically, I am trying to setup the Dell CPia to boot from several hard drives as I have previous laptops. What I normally do is simply move the drive from the old machine to the new one and let it plug and play the new hardware and all is usually well plus or minus a few driver issues......

With the 20gb IBM travelstor in the DELL, I just get a blinking cursor in the upper left corner of the screen and nothing happens once it passes POST. Other drives are fine, such as a Hitachi 6gb drive. According to their website, there is a download for Hitachi 20,30,40 gb drives, but nothing listed for any IBM or other drives.

I upgraded to the most current flash bios A15 but none of this works. Is there some signature required on this one drive?? The same drive can move between models of Hitachi Vision Book Pro Laptops and plug and play fine.

Any thoughts?

Grog

 

[wolluf]

when you move drives between machines - are the machines usually similar (at least same manufacturer?). Because this sort of move has a much higher success rate if machines are similar. Otherwise its pot luck if the drive will boot at all.

I'm presuming the drive is being correctly detected, and for example you could access it from an XP boot CD? If so, I'd suggest a repair reinstall again (if you can run recovery console, you could try running fixboot).