Thinkpad not recognising new hard drive

Hi,

I have a thinkpad i series 1200, model number 1161-CSG. The hard drive that came with it broke (it now rattles when shaken), and i have a new samsung 40GB hard drive for it. I installed the new hd in the laptop, but the hd doesnt appear under the system information in the BIOS setsetup utility. The Bios setup utility doesnt have an option that would seek out any new hardware, as it should be automatically detected.

I have now upgraded the Bios to the latest i could find on the ibm website (v1.10f), but still the hard disk doesnt show. The harddisk cant be formatted until the laptop recognises it.

The recovery disks that were supplied dont work as the hd cant be found, niether do my XP install disks, for the same reason. The pins on the hard drive are the same as the hd i took out (for the master\slave option), so i dont think it is that, but i do not know what else to do.

Any suggestions would be gratefully received, as i am stuck.

Cheers.

could be when your old HD went tits up, the controller card shorted out. That is why your new drive isn't showing under BIOS.

I recently had the same exact problem with I think the same laptop. Did you ever figure out if it was the controller or not? Also, does anyone know if the controller is the problem, is it worth it to try to fix it?

-Jim