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The replacement hard drive you used, was it a new hard drive?

Is it the only hard drive attached to your system?

Thanks.. What version of Vista do you have loaded.. 32 bit, 64 bit , Vista Premium, Ultimate?

Thanks.

One more question.. Did you set the Seagate up as an internal drive.. Or an external usb accessed drive?

No need to apologize, Im a nit picker.. But it helps me to understand the current situation a little better, and to provide slightly better solutions then if I guessed..

Lets discuss the hard drive further..

Is it a SATA,, PATA, IDE, EIDE, etc etc?

If your not sure.. It should label it on the box it came in.. And possibly on the drive itself.

Also The old har drive.. Do we know what type it was? ( sata, pata, etc etc)

Thanks.. And the new hard drive?

Thanks. Just wanted to make sure.

Ok.. When your computer first boots up.

It should have a very quick flash screen, on that screen it should say something like press F1 F2 or delete or escape to enter bios options, or setup options.

Does it say what key you need to use?

Yes..
lets reboot, and wash carefully at the post screen.. It may only flash for a second.

It may take a few reboots to cathc what key it is..

if you cant find it,, then try tapping F1 , F2 , esc, del .. Try tapping those in the first 1 second the computer is booting.. When you hit the bios screen, you will know as it looks like a 1970s computer option screen.

Ok.. Then lets set it to another option.

Go in, click it and see what other options it lists..

then let me know, and we will change it to the correct setting..

Question.

Are you certain that the new drive was a SATA, and not an extended ede drive?

And are you 100 % certain the old drive was a SATA drive?

Heres what Im thinking.. Your original drive was either not a normal sata, or, it had an adapter on it to convert it to work with t he motherboard properly.

Before we go further down that route though..

When your in the bios options, you dont see Advanced tab:

-Onboard Device configuration?

Thanks.. Since your new drive is a sata 2

lets disable pata, and sata 1

And then enable sata 2.. save the settings..

And then see if its working any better..

Thats ok.. As the size doesnt make too much of a difference to the enable / disable step we need to try next.

Remember disable pata and sata1

and enable sata2 .. Then save settings..

PATA should have been the DVD drive, and sata 1 and sata 2 shoudl have referred to hard drive ports..

Though if it didnt change anything disabling them.. Then its a moot point.

You said earlier you had already updated the bios.. I need you to test something for me.

If you try to start this way


Please shut down the computer,

Then, start the computer and immediately start tapping the F8 Key. It should give you a list of startup options.

The first option we want to try is " Safe mode with networking"

This will put us in safe mode.

Does it seem to load or at least.. Move faster?

Once loaded up.. Does it resume any faster operations?

Id like to keep working through this issue with you, but I am out of time for this evening.

I work here 7 days a week, and all this week longer hours.. 9 am till about 6pm.

I hope we could continue this another time.. Thanks Lorne,

Dustin

My apologies for the delay in getting back to you Lorne.

Happy to hear that you resolved the issue. If theres anything else you need, let me know.

D.S