canadian69
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- May 1, 2010
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http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/latd800/sm_en/hdd.htm#1123687
The link above tells you where to start. You will of course need to purchase a hard drive that will fit in this particular bay. Taking it to your vendor of choice will ensure compatibility. Note that the HDD itself is usually screwed into the removable bay/tray, dont force anything.
The existing HDD will have dimensional info on it (12 millimeters for example, although I do not know if that is correct for this model). It may actually only support 9.5mm high drives. (this is a measure of the thickness of the drive. If its too thick it may fit in the tray no problem, but will not fit in the laptop housing.
Also this laptop only supports IDE drives (Not SATA) so you would be looking for a drive of 120GB (ish) or less. Depending on your operating system it is possible to have larger partitioned drives, I only make this comment to try and keep things simple.
The link above tells you where to start. You will of course need to purchase a hard drive that will fit in this particular bay. Taking it to your vendor of choice will ensure compatibility. Note that the HDD itself is usually screwed into the removable bay/tray, dont force anything.
The existing HDD will have dimensional info on it (12 millimeters for example, although I do not know if that is correct for this model). It may actually only support 9.5mm high drives. (this is a measure of the thickness of the drive. If its too thick it may fit in the tray no problem, but will not fit in the laptop housing.
Also this laptop only supports IDE drives (Not SATA) so you would be looking for a drive of 120GB (ish) or less. Depending on your operating system it is possible to have larger partitioned drives, I only make this comment to try and keep things simple.
Thanks so much for your assistance. I installed the HDD ok. I put in DELL's cd and it seem to load ok. Then it wanted WINDOWS installed. WHen I restarted the computer and hit F2 it says for HARDDRIVE NONE. Did I miss something? Thanks again.
canadian69
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Sorry for the late reply, if you have already found a solution let me know, otherwise I would need to know more details on the drive that you installed. From wat you are telling me, the HDD is not being detected in the BIOS. This could be that the BIOS doesn't support the size of the drive you have installed. Possibly a BIOS update could fix this. Where did you buy it? Did they give you any technical assistance?
Thanks for helping out. I still do not know what I am doing. Dell says if the HDD was not recognized it meant that the motherboard is bad. I surely hope not. I purchased this laptop from a yardsale for $75.00. It's an 80GB HDD. The guy I bought it from says they had to remove the old HDD to turn it in to his company. That's why he bought a new HDD, He says the laptop worked fine until he tried to install the new HDD. Let me know if you need more info. Thanks a bunch.
JT
canadian69
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- May 1, 2010
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What is the make/model of the harddrive?
Whats the specific Dell model number (usually on the bottom somewhere)
Without the hardrive installed you should still be able to boot the machine and get into the BIOS settings (usually F2 right at boot up). If you can do this then the laptop is probably ok and its just not detecting the drive.
Put the drive back in and get back into the BIOS, is the drive being recognized? The main BIOS settings screen should list the drive if it is capable of recognizing it.
If not, then the drive is not compatible with the current version of the BIOS. The latter leaves you with two options, update the BIOS in hopes that it is then recognize your new HDD or purchase a harddrive that IS compatible with your current BIOS revision.
You can dowload the current BIOS update utility from Dells support site. The AC adapter must be plugged in while doing the update. get back into the BIOS, check for the drive, save settings and exit. If still no drive then you need another HDD.
If you can't get into the BIOS, the unit is likely dead.
Whats the specific Dell model number (usually on the bottom somewhere)
Without the hardrive installed you should still be able to boot the machine and get into the BIOS settings (usually F2 right at boot up). If you can do this then the laptop is probably ok and its just not detecting the drive.
Put the drive back in and get back into the BIOS, is the drive being recognized? The main BIOS settings screen should list the drive if it is capable of recognizing it.
If not, then the drive is not compatible with the current version of the BIOS. The latter leaves you with two options, update the BIOS in hopes that it is then recognize your new HDD or purchase a harddrive that IS compatible with your current BIOS revision.
You can dowload the current BIOS update utility from Dells support site. The AC adapter must be plugged in while doing the update. get back into the BIOS, check for the drive, save settings and exit. If still no drive then you need another HDD.
If you can't get into the BIOS, the unit is likely dead.
OK Guys I got the laptop fixed. I took it to Staples because I tried everything Dell and you guys told me to do. I just coulkd not get it to work. The proplem was the HDD was not connected to the motherboard because it needed an adopter. WEW! I;m glad that's over. I hope this helps others out there. Thanks for all the support!
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