Is Western Digital HD compatible with this ECS motherboard?

[Akagi Kong]

Hello,

Someone gave me a spare drive after mine stopped working. The hard drive that stopped working was a Hitachi Deskstar Model: HDS728080PLAT20. The replacement drive is a Western Digital WD400 Model: WD400BB-00DEA0. The motherboard is an ECS Elitegroup Model: P4M800PRO-M478 (V1.0).

All the connections are correct, but when I boot the computer to install Windows XP It only gets as far as the BIOS Setup and boot options, it does not continues on to reading the CD-ROM and installing the OS.

I was not able find a spec sheet on the Western Digital, just pages of
of drive failures and "DEA0" puns.

Mortality rate aside, is this hard drive even compatible with this motherboard, some of the search hits imply a backwards compatibility.

If this isn't the case would someone please explain why, so I will know what to look for when I go to buy a replacement hard drive.

Specifically, the compatibility between the mother board ( ATA133 - Supports Ultra DMA 33/66/100/133 IDE devices, data transfer rate up to 133MB/s) and the hard drives (parallel ata-133 and Enhanced IDE) is what's confusing me. Thanks is advance.

 

[GhislainG]

There might be a conflict between the hard disk and the CDROM drive. Check if the old drive is configured as master or cable select. Then configure the WD to match the Deskstar settings.

The specs are available at http://www.wdc.com/en/products/legacy/Legacy.asp?r=1. Select WD400BB - 40 GB - 7200 RPM.

 

[SpidersWeb]

They are compatible.
Check what Ghislain said, unless they're on seperate cables.

Next go in to your BIOS, go to Advanced or Boot Options (will be in something like this) and make sure your CDROM is set to be the only boot device (remove the hard disk entries). Do the XP install, then go back in to the BIOS and set the first boot device to be your hard disk.

If the computer starts and shows 'Press F11 for Boot Menu' or something similar, then it'll be easier to use this, just select the CDROM from the menu.

The computer not booting off the CDROM is not the fault of the new hard drive, but it might be a fault in how you've set it up or the computer hasn't been told to boot from CD.

 

[Akagi Kong]

Actually everything was set correctly, I checked everything the two of you suggested. But for some reason I had to use F8 BBS Popup to get it to boot of the disk.

Before the drive went I was able to boot from different media by hitting DEL and changing setting in setup, without going through F8.

The setup was to USB -> CD-Rom -> hard drive.

Thanks again for the replies.

Now the problem is the CPU overheating, just after the Windows XP, agree to license check point. The box has been sitting cold for a few months now, I'm guess that will effect cheap cpu paste?

I ordered some paste, hopefully that will resolve the problem.

 

[SpidersWeb]

Yeah that can happen. When you change the paste also make sure the heatsink is seated correctly and if its packed with dust I use a toothbrush to clear it out.

 

[Akagi Kong]

Thanks for all the replies,

The Problem has been resolved. BTW OCZ Freeze is living up to its reputation on the forums I've read.

This article came in handy, I wasn't really brand aware in this area, just the rock stars of bleeding-edge hype, so I cross-checked the top five brands.