[Redxlll]

Hey I just bought a new computer,
it's an AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 4000+
2.11 GHz, 2 GB RAM

And it came with a Sata 120g Hard drive already installed and ready to go.
It came with windows XP SP3.

My problem is that I'm trying to install my old hard drive from my old computer which is an IDE 40g hard drive which I have all of my files on which I need to put into this computer.

The pin slots look like this - :::: - there isn't a fifth row, just four.

When I plug it in and start up the computer, it will give me a screen telling me that windows has not started successfully so I press enter to start windows normally and then the computer restarts and just repeats the loop.

I've tried using pins, different ends of cables but everytime it starts up, beeps, and tells me the same thing.

I am also running a DVD writer hard drive.

Help would be much appreciated thanks!

[Alex Ethridge]

Sounds like your system may be trying to boot from the old hard disk instead of the new one. Check the BIOS (Setup) settings for the hard disk boot order.

[Hughv]

"The pin slots look like this - :::: - there isn't a fifth row, just four."
I'm not sure what this means, but an IDE HD needs to attach to an IDE port, and the jumper must be set appropriately.

[Redxlll]

@Hughv
I just thought I'd add that in incase I needed to add pins or something.

@Alex
Thanks! I went into the BIOS setup and it turns out that whenever I attached the old hard drive, the computer automatically made the old hdd as hdd1 and the new one as hdd2 so I switched them around and it works! Thanks =]

[Alex Ethridge]

There is a common misconception that SATA is not an IDE device. SATA is a serial IDE device and the PATA (the older technology) is a parallel IDE device.

To expand on what Hughv wrote, the older drive is probably a parallel drive (PATA). If so, it has two rows of twenty pins each. The connector is about two inches wide and will accommodate all forty pins. (One row may be missing a pin in the middle.)

If your drive does not have this pin arrangement, then it is probably a serial drive (SATA).

Glad you worked it out.

[dustyjay]

Actually I believe the pins he referenced are the jumper pins on the pata drive

[Alex Ethridge]

yup