Two SATA won't work together? different? Stuck, please help!

Hey gang. this is my first time posting on a thread in this place because ive never really had to, but i have a feeling ill be coming back for more info. If you can help, it would be awesome.

So heres the deal. I have an HP dv9000 laptop with win7, 4gb ram. for the past year ive had two SATA hdd's (internal) and theyve worked great. They are each 120gb (C: and D:)

D: was getting full, so i wanted to buy a new one. I bought a 640gb SATA and my plan was just to swap out my D: (since i back up D: all the time)

i took out D: (drive spot #2) and put in my new Drive. when i booted, i was getting serious lag, and errors. i figured it just needed formatting.

I brought it over to my mac, plugged it in with an external connector, formatted to fat32 - (just so i could later NTFS it). Brought it back to my HP, popped it in... HP logo came up, but hung for about 45 seconds!! Normally just takes 10 seconds. then the windows 7 logo comes up "Starting windows" and hangs. literally takes 10-12 minutes to get the windows flag showing up, then just sits there. nothing.

i took out C: and D:, swapped the D: (640gb) to Spot 1 just to see if it would work (the new one) it worked, but didnt have an OS. so just for kicks and giggles and further testing i installed a previous Win7 image i backed up. it works great! the new HDD works perfect by itself.

So if youre not getting the jyst, or im not making sense. My original C: and my new D: (640gb) dont work together, but individually they both work great. did tests on both and are fine. Even my old D: (120gb) works great with the C:, but my new one doesnt.

ugh. i hope this makes sense. ive been researching so much lately. i sound like such a child. if you can help that would be awesome. thanks! :)

OH! forgot to tell you - it works great plugged into my external USB connector, just not internal!!

Lemur said:

Have you check your bios for correct configuration?

Well. thats a good question. I went into my BIOS and there really is no option to change the SATA1 or SATA2, or anything. the only real good my BIOS is, is changing the boot order and System Time. ha! as far as the boot order, its only "notebook harddrive" nothing more specific.

whs said:

Lemur said:

Have you check your bios for correct configuration?

I agree, that looks very much like a BIOS problem.

ok. so, ill reboot with both the harddrives in, go to BIOS. then what should i look for? what kind of options should i change. im pretty familiar with BIOS- but this specific problem is just absolutely foreign to me.

Lemur said:

Have you check your bios for correct configuration?

ok. so i put in the harddrive (its in right now) and went into bios. my bios must be REALLY simple, because there is nothing to check in the bios. do you mean i need to update them?

thanks for your help, both of you.

the Hdd is in now. im afraid to do anything that requires scanning of my disks, it might lock up on me.

i have never updated bios in my life. let me know what to do! thanks!

Lemur said:

if you wanted to pursue this further, what is the name and model # of your mobo?

Manufacturer: Quanta
Model: 30B9 65.2C
Chipset: NVIDIA GeForce6150 Rev.A2
SB: NVIDIA nForce 410/430 MCP

BIOS: Brand Hewlett-Packard
Version: F.42
Date 03/09/2009

Just to be clear, this laptop has two internal hard drive bays?

DeaconFrost said:

Just to be clear, this laptop has two internal hard drive bays?

Yes it does. Before i bought my new harddrive i had both filled. each having a SATA 120gb. I used one (C:) for, well. C: stuff. and bay 2 was D:.

both worked great together.

the new one is a SATA 640gb.

works great by itself and external USB. but with my C:, doesnt recognize and windows takes FOREVER to load.