Chapter 7

Hard Drive Installation and Support

A+ Certification for PC Technician

Installing the IDE & SCSI HDD
What the Steps to Prepare the Hard What are the tools you need?
disk? 1. Windows Startup Disk
1. Set the Jumper 2. Windows CD-ROM
⇒ Master/Slave for IDE & LUN 3. Driver Disks
4. Application Software CDs
for SCSI
1. Installing the hard disk drive in the
Hard Disk Bay
2. Partitioning to create partition
3. Format the drive partition

What the additional step to Setup the

Software?
1. Installing the OS
2. Installing the Hardware Device
Drivers
3. Installing application software

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Installing HDD - Points to Note
Pin 1 Primary
Secondary
Red line towards
Pin 1 of IDE 1 1

To CD ROM Drive
To Hard Disk

IDE 2
IDE 1
IDE Cable IDE Cable

IDE 1 (Primary)
⇒ fastest devices eg the hard disk with
OS and software
IDE 2 (Secondary)
⇒ Slower devices eg cd-rom

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Hard Disk Master/Slave Settings
Two devices connected to one IDE Cable
Slave Device
• 1 device must be set as Master device
• The other must be set as Slave device

Master Device

IDE Cable

IDE connector
on Motherboard
1 IDE 1/IDE 2
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80-pin IDE Cable
How many pins has a normal IDE cable?
40 pins

When is the 80-pin IDE Cable used

instead of the 40-pin?
The 80-pin cable is required if the Hard
Disk is to operate at Ultra DMA-66 and
above. Without the cable, Ultra DMA-
66 and higher will be disable. The extra
40 cables is used to reduce
interference between cables (cross-
talk). A standard 80-conductor Ultra DMA
IDE/ATA interface cable.
Note the blue, gray and black connectors,
Why are the connectors colour coded?
and the 80 thin wires.
Each connector has its own role. Blue The red marking on wire #1 is still present
connector is connected to the
motherboard, Grey connector to the
Slave device and the Black to the Drive.

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Updating the CMOS
How do I know when I need to update
the BIOS when changing/adding new
hard disk?
When you start the PC, the BIOS
information screen will list the hard
disks you have. If it does not match,
you need to update the BIOS.

What problem can occur when installing

a new high capacity HDD to a older PC?
The BIOS may not recognised the HDD
or see the Hard Disk as a smaller
capacity hard disk. Old BIOS (PC
purchased before 1998) typically
supports up to 8GB Hard Disk.

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BIOS Do Not Support Large Capacity HDD
What can be done if the PC does not Which solution is recommended?
recognise a High Capacity Hard Disk? Use Disk Manager software. It can be
Use one of the solution listed in the downloaded from the respective HDD
table below. manufacture web site.

Upgrade the BIOS Some danger involved

Upgrade the System Board Costly

May need to upgrade other items
Use Disk Management software to Eg EZ-Drive by StorageSoft, Quantum Disk
interface between older BIOS and Manager
large capacity HDD
Use an adapter card that provides For system without BIOS upgrade eg Ultra
BIOS to substitute the system ATA100 card from Maxtor to support Ultra
BIOS ATA100 HDD

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Other Problems during Installation
When add a new hard disk to the PC has only 1 IDE, which already been
existing Hard Disk, both hard disks are used for Hard Disk and CD-ROM. How
not recognised. What happen? to add another Hard Disk?
Master and Slave setting not configure Get a IDE card.
properly

When add a new hard disk to the

existing Hard Disk, both hard disks are
not recognised. Master and slave are
configure properly. What happen?
Both hard disk may not be compatible
with one another.

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Preventive Measures - HDD & Content
What the preventive measures to be taken to maintain the HDD?

1. Gentle with your HDD

⇒ Do not shift the PC when it is powered on.
1. Don’t smoke around your HDD
⇒ The HDD is not entirely air-tight. Smoke particle entering the interior
of HDD can crash the right/write head
1. Don’t leave PC turned off for weeks or months
2. Avoid high humidity
3. Defragment the HDD
⇒ Organised the files in the HDD and keep it in optimal performance

What the the measures to take to avoid losing the data?

1. Scan the HDD periodically
⇒ Scandisk detect HDD errors, both data and physical problems
1. Backup your data and keep it current
⇒ Recover the data should the HDD is damaged

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Problems with Hard Disk
What the Types of Problems that can happen to the Hard Drive?

⇒ The problems can be separated into Hardware and Software:

1. Hardware Problems
HDD controller failure, power supply, data cable, BIOS or setup
Shows up in POST & HDD cannot be accessed
Drive mechanism damaged, physical damage to disk surface
(where partition table, boot record, FAT, data are stored)
Error messages

1. Software Problems
OS files corrupted
Corrupted partition table, boot record, root directory – hard disk
cannot be access
FAT corrupted – data is lost
Data corruption
Virus attacked

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Damaged Partition Table
You get messages like: If the earlier step do not work?
Invalid drive or Drive Specification, 1. Re-partition the drive
Invalid partition table,
2. Re-install the Windows
Corrupt boot sector,
Non-system disk or Disk error when you
start the PC. What happened? How can the problem be prevented?
Partition Table (MBR) is damaged Copy the Partition information to a
diskette for recovery. Tools like
How to fix the problem? Partition Manager and MBRtools can be
Using the command FDISK /MBR to used. The information can be loaded
fixed the problem. The command is back when needed.
found in the Startup Disk. It rebuilds
the MBR. The contents may not be
recovered.

What are the recovery steps?

1. Boot with a Startup Disk to A:
prompt
2. Type FDISK /MBR

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Error Messages
What does ‘Invalid media type reading What is the problem when the error
drive C” means? message “Sector not found reading
Cause by one of three following drive C:, Abort, Retry, Fail”
reasons: Bad sectors in Drive C. Perform a
1. The hard disk drive does not have a surface scan.
valid format
• Fdisk /mbr What happened what the error
• Format C: /s messages:
1. The hard disk drive has been HDD Controller failure,
fdisked but not formatted. No boot device available or Drive not
• Format C: /s found appears?
1. The hard disk drive is bad Connectivity errors. Inspect the entire
connection system (including power).
• Fdisk /mbr
You might want to try removing and
• Format C: reseating the controller if you get an
If error message appear, then HDD controller failure.
hard disk is BAD

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Error Messages
What is problem if "invalid system disk“ What happen when “missing command
message appears when the PC boots? interpreter” or Invalid System Disk
The boot files may have been appears?
corrupted. Boot from a startup disk Caused by any of the following
and issue the command: possibilities:
SYS C: 1. Non bootable CD or diskette in
drive.
2. Boot sequence setup improperly.
• Setup at the BIOS
1. The command.com, msdos.sys, io.sys
or drvspace.bin is missing or
corrupted.
• SYS C: to fix
1. Bad hard drive or not connect
properly

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Corrupted System Files (page 384)
Error message when starting the computer

Invalid system disk…

⇒ Either IO.SYS or MSDOS.SYS is corrupted
⇒ Boot the PC with Startup Disk (same version)
 Type SYS C:
 Do not expect to recover Windows!

Error message when starting the computer

Command file not found

⇒ COMMAND.COM is missing
⇒ Copy it from a Startup Disk to the Boot Drive (C:)

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Deleting a File
When happen when file are delete? When deleting a file in DOS, does the file
When files is deleted, it is not immediately goes to the Recycle Bin?
remove from the hard disk. Instead, the No.
system places a special code into the 1st
character of the name to mark is as Where can file be deleted into the Recycle
‘Deleted’. It space can be re-used. Bin?
In Windows. Use the Delete Key in My
Can delete file be recovered? Computer or Windows Explorer.
Yes. By using third party utility eg Norton
Utilities’ UNERASE.

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