Installing extra hard disks on Acer aspire M3610

I already mentioned this in a previous thread, but I thought I'd start
a new thread on it.

I recently installed a second hard disk (Samsung 500GB HD501LJ) and
immediately started having problems. It could be a coincidence I
guess, but WinXP which I had recently installed started hanging when
loading the desktop.

Clicking the start button does nothing, and the cursor changes to an
hourglass when hovering over the taskbar and the system tray. The only
way to get out of it is to access the task manager andf logging off;
then, logging back in, Windows loads without problems.

This has happened 3 times in about 1.5 weeks now.

So I was wondering if anyone has any experience, any issues adding
drives to the Acer Aspire M3610 or similar desktop models.

It doesn't help that I don't have any decent documentation for the
MRS600M mobo.

Just guessing, because ordinarily there shouldn't be an interaction if
Windows is on a different disk.

Perhaps the boot order in the bios is messed up? Check what the bios says
the new disk is, and make sure you set the jumper (I assume it is IDE or
PATA) to slave. When you formatted the new partition, did you install it as
extended, primary, or active primary? It would be best, if you don't plan to
put an operating system on it if you format it extended.

You should be able to get most of these questions answered, and make any
changes you want in XP's Disk Management.

Sometimes the software supplied with the HD does a lousy job of setting it
up. You can do it all easily in XP. Finally is it formatted NTFS or FAT32?
XP should handle either, but NTFS seems more reliable in large disks and you
can change on the fly if you want to.

If you are running any kind of malware scanner, especially one of the large
suites, it may be trying to scan the disk in the last stages of boot up, and
be sucking up all your system resources for awhile. Have you tried just
waiting it out? Big disks take more scan effort. Again, just some guesses.

Good luck.


"Sentinel" <> wrote in message
news:349e5107-618b-4b32-8e58-...
>I already mentioned this in a previous thread, but I thought I'd start
> a new thread on it.
>
> I recently installed a second hard disk (Samsung 500GB HD501LJ) and
> immediately started having problems. It could be a coincidence I
> guess, but WinXP which I had recently installed started hanging when
> loading the desktop.
>
> Clicking the start button does nothing, and the cursor changes to an
> hourglass when hovering over the taskbar and the system tray. The only
> way to get out of it is to access the task manager andf logging off;
> then, logging back in, Windows loads without problems.
>
> This has happened 3 times in about 1.5 weeks now.
>
> So I was wondering if anyone has any experience, any issues adding
> drives to the Acer Aspire M3610 or similar desktop models.
>
> It doesn't help that I don't have any decent documentation for the
> MRS600M mobo.

"Wandering" <> schreef in bericht
news:g2ebpg$kkk$...
> Just guessing, because ordinarily there shouldn't be an interaction if
> Windows is on a different disk.
>
> Perhaps the boot order in the bios is messed up? Check what the bios says
> the new disk is, and make sure you set the jumper (I assume it is IDE or
> PATA) to slave. When you formatted the new partition, did you install it
> as extended, primary, or active primary? It would be best, if you don't
> plan to put an operating system on it if you format it extended.
>
> You should be able to get most of these questions answered, and make any
> changes you want in XP's Disk Management.
>
> Sometimes the software supplied with the HD does a lousy job of setting it
> up. You can do it all easily in XP. Finally is it formatted NTFS or
> FAT32? XP should handle either, but NTFS seems more reliable in large
> disks and you can change on the fly if you want to.
>
> If you are running any kind of malware scanner, especially one of the
> large suites, it may be trying to scan the disk in the last stages of boot
> up, and be sucking up all your system resources for awhile. Have you
> tried just waiting it out? Big disks take more scan effort. Again, just
> some guesses.
>
> Good luck.

Thanks for your feedback! I appreciate it. Well, concerning master and slave
setting, these drives are actually SATA, so there's no master and slave
setting to be done with them. Even though the SATA ports are apparently
still called primary/secondary master/slave, apparently.

I did get some helpful information from Acer support, and after checking the
BIOS settings, it turns out the port I had connected my drive to was
actually the secondary slave position. (Secondary master being the DVD
drive.)

But anyway, after some messing around in windows the problem seems to have
gone away, somehow. (Sorry I can't be more specific than that. :-)) I
haven't bothered reconnecting the drive(s) fro the time being.