My latitude 640's hard drive crapped out/died, I bought a new one from eBay (I made sure it was a compatible drive for the computer) and when I tried to install it, upon boot-up it told me the hard drive bay was empty. I downloaded a few different hard drive locator software programs but even though they can see the hard drive, when I go through the BIOS it says the bay is empty. Its a new HD so I doubt that its dead, but I'm stumped!

Mark Leathers, May 2007

Mark,
Is the drive spinning when you power the laptop?
Check the jumpers on the drive. Some laptops need the jumper to be set to "cable select", others need it to be "master".
Other than that, there's not a lot more you can try.
Good luck,
Raf

dupalopez, June 2007

http://search.euro.dell.com/results.aspx?s=gen&c=uk&l=en&cs=&k=lattitude+hard+drive+replace&cat=sup&x=6&y=9

you should find the answer there somewhere.

Pete, May 2007