HP Pavilion a620n (PC028A) PC Desktop Logo
Alex S Posted on May 13, 2009
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Computer doesn't see new secondary hard drive

I'm trying to install a sata (red skinny cable)1 terrabyte hard drive as a second hd in my hp pavillion a620n. I have a primary hard drive that is the old kind that connects via the grey ide cable. My computer does not see the new drive please help.

  • 7 more comments 
  • Anonymous May 13, 2009

    yes the motherboard has a sata connector

  • Anonymous May 13, 2009

    the bois says my serial port is enabled.

  • Anonymous May 13, 2009

    i did try the disk management thing and i think my bios has it emabled serial port a and thats what it says on the motherboard where i have it plugged in. My bios looks different than the one you sent mew though it doesn't have the options that say sata it has a spot that says

    i/o Device Config and if i look in here it says serial port enabled as far as i can tell its the only thing that says anything about a serial port.

  • Alex S May 13, 2009

    okay i finally managed to log back in but i did respond to everyone under guest status

  • Alex S May 13, 2009

    i'm pretty sure my computer doesn't see it at all cause it doesn't show up in the startup screen

  • Alex S May 13, 2009

    do i need to change the jumper setting on the original hard drive?

  • Alex S May 13, 2009

    i don't have anything in my bios that says sata but it doesn't matter anyway cause i made a stupid rookie mistake and killed my computer somehow. Cant get it to do anything now. Doesn't even see my original hard drive. Thanks for your time :-(

  • Alex S May 13, 2009

    Honesty time I moved the hard drive while the computer was on and it just died. I'm pretty sure i killed the drive. A crappy lesson to learn but hey at least it was on my computer not someone else's. I'm going to order a new drive later this week and send this one back home to my ex for data recovery. As far as the SATA drive goes I'm pretty sure my computer is just too old and not compatible because I can't find anything in the bios that even says SATA, the closest it gets is serial port. I did try to get my drive to work again, I stripped everything else out of the computer and tried the jump;er in every position (a couple times) but no dice all i get from it is it runs through the power up screen and when it should go to windows start up it says boot disk failure plese insert system disk and press enter. I put my xp disk into the cd drive (after reconnecting it of course) and it thinks for a few seconds then goes back to the same error message thanks for all the great info though and I'm sure I'll be seeing you around as I am trying to learn to repair computers (start school in the fall). Have a great night and thank you so much for all your help and all the great info!!!

  • Anonymous May 11, 2010

    does the motherboard has SATA connector?

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  • Posted on May 29, 2010
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There is no option in the bios to enable sata. It appears that the sata ports are just for decoration (hence hp using IDE)

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  • Posted on May 20, 2010
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I have the same system. Did you ever get the SATA drive to work?

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  • HP Master 1,997 Answers
  • Posted on May 13, 2009
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I'll assume you're using windows xp, but in any case have you tried going to my computer>manage>disk management to see if it appears? If not, refer to pg 8 or pg 14 of this article to Install a hard drive. You may have to enter the bios (F1 at boot) to allow the new drive. Also see this link to your bios setup screens.
If you're still having problems after looking through this info and checking the bios setup, write back and we'll be happy to help sort it out...

I hope this information allows you to resolve this issue. If you need further assistance, please post back with a comment to this thread.
If I've managed to answer your question or solve a problem, please take just a moment to rate this post....thanks!

  • 2 more comments 
  • efs_perpends
    efs_perpends May 13, 2009

    The jumper should be set to master, unless you have a cable select cable installed, in which case you should use cable select.

  • efs_perpends
    efs_perpends May 13, 2009

    What brand of hard drive? Have you checked their website to see if they have and installation instructions or firmware to install with the drive?

  • efs_perpends
    efs_perpends May 13, 2009

    Depending on your bios, you may have to set both the SATA interface to enabled and also set the SATA DMA to enable the drive.

  • efs_perpends
    efs_perpends May 13, 2009

    Sorry to hear that...
    Maybe this link will be helpful for you to work through to see what's up...
    Try unplugging the power cable and press the power button for a sec, then ground yourself and disconnect all drives including youroptical and IDE drive, then reconnect power and boot bios alone.
    Slowly reconnect elements and reboot if you get the bios up, and maybe you can get it running again...

    If you do get it back up, here's a possible helpful link to that previous error.


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  • Expert 152 Answers
  • Posted on May 13, 2009
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Make sure that the SATA port is enabled in the system BIOS - the "Press F2 for Setup" (or whichever key) message that flashes when you first boot the machine.

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