Laptop har drive works on laptop but not desktop

[mortino]

hello i currently have a laptop hard drive it is a wd scorpio blue 320gb drive it has a dual boot win 7 and ubuntu , linux partition is ext4. for some reason i have extreme difficulty getting this drive detected in the bios when i hook it up to my desktop. any thoughts?

 

[rolli59]

Not really it should just work if it is not bad just make sure that it is plugged in correctly and the controller you are plugging into is enabled!

 

[mortino]

Not really it should just work if it is not bad just make sure that it is plugged in correctly and the controller you are plugging into is enabled!

well thats the thing i cant find anywhere in bios saying if its enabled or not, i keep the drive settings at auto detect bcuz it wont actually let me set them unless the drive is detected. but using my other hard drives and my optical drive they are all detected just not the laptop one. it baffels me ive had this problem b4 with this drive when trying to connnect it to my desktop only way ive gotten it to detect is to turn of pc and turn back on a couple thousand times. and srry for long reply just wanna through out any info that might help to fix the problem.

 

[rolli59]

Looks like the drive has an issue then (not mentioned in the first post) whether it is a bad connector or something else! If another drive works on the same connector then the controller is enabled!

 

[smorizio]

check your bios setting if there all sata drives..is the mb in achi mode or ide mode on the sata ports?? check to see if your bios has a hard drive delay setting in the bios. some do some dont. the drive not seen could be an issue with it spin up speed and the bios hard drive time out settings. if there ide drives and the jumpers are set right it happens some times that two ide drives there controlers dont like each other. sometime you have to put one hard drive on the other ide port. on drive time out issue as it a laptop drive most them park the read write heads so they dont get damaged. so when you power the drive up there is a delay for when the drive send a ready signal to the chipset controler. laptop bios may have it in them a longer setting then your desktop before it thinks the drive has failed to spin up. a work around would try and plug your laptop drive into the usb port.

 

[mortino]

check your bios setting if there all sata drives..is the mb in achi mode or ide mode on the sata ports?? check to see if your bios has a hard drive delay setting in the bios. some do some dont. the drive not seen could be an issue with it spin up speed and the bios hard drive time out settings. if there ide drives and the jumpers are set right it happens some times that two ide drives there controlers dont like each other. sometime you have to put one hard drive on the other ide port. on drive time out issue as it a laptop drive most them park the read write heads so they dont get damaged. so when you power the drive up there is a delay for when the drive send a ready signal to the chipset controler. laptop bios may have it in them a longer setting then your desktop before it thinks the drive has failed to spin up. a work around would try and plug your laptop drive into the usb port.

sata ports are in ide mode (on laptop drive works in ide and ahci) there is 1 physical ide drive at the moment as i had to rma the normal boot drive, the storage drives have been unplugged while i try to figure out this problem which are sata drives. i had also thought a possibility of the spin up times as well but have seen no option in either bios. could the physical ide controller be causing the problem, ive tried with the laptop drive alone and still nothing.

 

[mortino]

so i solved this issue earlier. apparently the drive is just bitchy, it will only recognize in the bios if it is connected to the first sata plug coming out of the psu, even if nothing else is plugged into the rest. very strange seeing as all other drives i have run fine on all connecters, but hey at least its working ty for the suggestions everyone.

 

[rolli59]

What PSU do you have? That is a very strange issue!

 

[mortino]

on that machine its a corsair tx650, its only like a year old. ty for the question reminded me to put in my specs to my profile

 

[rolli59]

Quality PSU that makes it even more strange! Then again maybe not since you had issues with the drive in the laptop which does not run on that PSU.

 

[mortino]

Quality PSU that makes it even more strange! Then again maybe not since you had issues with the drive in the laptop which does not run on that PSU.

no issues in the laptop sorry if i typed that wrong earlier, ya its crazy strange and has been bugging me for a few months now, and all other hard drives i have plugged into the same psu have no issues including other laptop drives.

 

[rolli59]

???
From your second post!
"it baffels me ive had this problem b4 with this drive when trying to connnect it to my laptop only way ive gotten it to detect is to turn of pc and turn back on a couple thousand times."

 

[mortino]

???
From your second post!
"it baffels me ive had this problem b4 with this drive when trying to connnect it to my laptop only way ive gotten it to detect is to turn of pc and turn back on a couple thousand times."

ya my bad, should reread my posts after i type them. apologies everyone.

made the edit from laptop to desktop, for future readers that may have a similar problem.

 

[rolli59]

Well the issue is so strange I do not have a solution except keeping it on that specific connector if you are happy with that!

 

[mortino]

Well the issue is so strange I do not have a solution except keeping it on that specific connector if you are happy with that!

o ya its all good, its working im happy lol. just need to transfer data back and forth on occasion.

 

[XistenZ]

Just wanted to add my own experience with this, as I had the same issue. The harddrive worked when installed on laptop, but when installed in a desktop the computer wouldn't recognize it, neither in Windows or BIOS. Other drives that would connect to the very same cables, without changing any settings was found without problem.

This thread gave me the idea to switch SATA-cables (not the ones from PSU, because that just makes no sense, but the ones going to the motherboard), and voila! It now recognizes everything.