have a setup i have been running from a liveusb without a hard drive for awhile. upon installation of a new hard drive, on startup, today i get a constant series of long beeps, all the same in tone and length.

by virtue of the system working fine for days off of a usb setup, i can eliminate many of the other possibilities. the one thing i dont know for absolute certainty is if im somehow connecting it incorrectly. im pretty sure i connected the HD to the same plugs i used for my previous hard drive, and they dont work. i then tried a different set inside the PC and they didnt either.

sounds like a dead HD to me, i would just like some confirmation or something before i give up.

Does you system still boot when the new drive is removed? Have you checked that the drive cables are correctly plugged in, with no bent pins? Also check the power cable. Some power cables' connectors can slip in the sleeve, and some partial connections can cause boot problems.

If it doesn't boot even after to unplug the new drive, it's likely that you dislodged some needed component of the system when you were installing the drive, most likely a memory chip, but perhaps something else.

You can check your mother-board manual for an explanation of the "beep" codes to see what those "beeps" are trying to tell you. (If you don't have a manual, search on-line for one.)

Long beeps, equal in tone and length indicate a memory error.

A non-working hard disk does not prevent the computer to boot, but you'll see "hard drive failure" or "missing boot system".

You could have connected the hard drive incorrectly and loading the system power supply too much, OR the hard disk can have an internal short causing the same.

You should try and go back to a diskless situation and test. Then try this disk in another system, and another disk in this system. That should enable you to draw conclusions.

jlinkels

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Hi, I think it will be your bios wanting to be configured for the new drive,

go into setup and check the drive is listed.

You don't mention if the hd is sata/pata/usb, but have you tried hotplugging it into a running system?

The drive may not be initialised yet.

The actual beep code would have really helped. /edit, sorry, you did say it.

reboot and check the bios (with and without the live disk present)

cheers, Glenn

the original HD was removed and hasnt been in the pc for awhile. the last few days ive ran it off of the liveusb, which is where im at now. until the time i plugged in the HD, there werent problems f any sort. when i plugged this new one in, which is the only one in the case, is when the beeping started. everything connected well and tightly, and the PC itself is 3 years old, so i know it can handle a 500gb hard drive when it shipped with a 320.

on startup beeping begins and it will hang at the first screen whether i choose to go to boot menu or not.it ususally goes to boot in seconds, but i waited well over 2 mins and nothing.

bios doesnt recognize it. when i tried to set a boot pattern, the usb was the only option it saw. RAM is fine, its new and it show up correctly when i check the usage on the liveusb.

hard drive brand is a seagate barracuda 7200.12 500gb.

Try another pc.(?) or doa!

I've got 2 of those drives in this system, peaches, just peaches.