Hard Drive replacement

[Crane Ana]

I cn keep my company Dell Inspiron 5150 as long as I return the hard drive. I got an IBM Travelstar 40 gb, 5400 rpm, PATA drive to replace the Hitachi 30 gb, 4200 rpm, PATA drive. After install, the system "shuts down to prevent damage". The instructions say to make sure that the hard drive is properly configured and terminated, then run CHKDSK/F for corruption and restart. I am starting the computer with an XP pro disk in the CD drive in hopes of rebooting.

Any suggestions?

[Miz]

It sounds like it's ignoring the CD and trying to boot from the new hard drive. It can't, of course, since that drive is still blank.

You need to get into the BIOS (also called Setup) to move the CD drive up to first in the boot device order.

Watch as the laptop start booting up for a screen with a line indicating a key to press to enter Setup (or something similar). When you see that screen, press that key. It's probably the F2 key.

Then it's a matter of navigating around in the BIOS to find the boot device order and moving the CD drive up to first. Once that's done, use the "Exit Saving Changes" option. It should then boot to the CD.

Then you need to partition the drive, then format the partition, then install XP.

[Crane Ana]

Thanks, that worked well. For partitioning the hard drive, how should that be set up?

[Miz]

Partitioning is a matter of personal preference. Since I like things simple, I just make one large partition (XP will make another, small one but it does it automatically so you don't have to worry about it).

I'd say for a 40-gig drive, just make it all one partition and be done with it.