Chosen Solution
ok, here goes. A friend of mine purchased an upgrade harddrive for her Dell. The problem is dell sent here a 250gb hard drive which is SATA interface. we bought an SATA to IDE adapter but cant format or partition the drive. Is the drive too large? Do I have to set up different jumpers? I booted from the installation CD of Windows XP but while its installing drivers and such the installation halts and we get an error.
If the original drive was IDE then the replacement should be IDE. You can try a work around but I doubt it will ever be satisfactory. You would need to make changes if possible in the bios settings to allow for a SATA drive and I’m not sure the software you are using has the proper drivers. FWIW I don’t think the size of the drive is a problem–just that its not an IDE drive. If the original drive was a SATA forget all of the above and use the link I gave you to format and install. Good luck Ralph Here is the link again. http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windo…
What rj713 says is right, just contact dell and get them to send the proper drive this time. They will.
I agree I would just purchase an IDE drive from pricewatch.com it’s that sata-to-ide adapter that will cause the problem as I assume you are using the OEM install of of windows XP drivers likely won’t be available. You don’t have to buy exclusively from dell when it comes to drives, even the optical ones. Get a 250 gig (PATA) also know as IDE and reimage the original OEM software and you should be fine.
