my father wishes to put his other IDE hard drive inside his computer, we have managed to put them both in, but we can't boot the omputer up with both hard drives plugged in, there doesnt seem to be an option under the BIOS to select hard drives, both of these hard drives have Windows XP on them, is this a factor?, also i cannot tell which part of the IDE cable is primary or seconday, there are two HDD connections and the other goes to the motherboard which is an ASUS, if anyone can help i will be very grateful, thanks
2007-10-15 05:37:57 · 16 answers · asked by c8bond 1 in Computers & Internet ➔ Hardware ➔ Desktops
You need to make one hard drive a slave. There is a jumper on the back that makes it Master, slave, or cable select. the slave should be connected into the middle connector of the ribbon cable. The end connector is always the Master. If you set the Hard drives to cable select then these connectors come into play. If you set one to master and the other to slave via the jumpers it really won't matter which they are plugged into. Also make sure that the side of the ribbon cable that is colored, either a stripe or dots, is toward the power plug.
2007-10-15 05:40:59 · answer #1 · answered by Roy T 5 · 3⤊ 0⤋
The Slave is the middle and the Master is at the end of the cable.
Most Drives come factory set to CS (Cable select) so you should first try switching the drives on the cable to get the operating system as the Master drive (end of the cable) followed by the second slave drive or storage drive in the middle of the cable.
If that does not solve the problem then you may have to manually change the jumper setting on the HD's for master and slave. Remember to keep your drive with the primary operating system on it as the Master Drive. The master drive gets checked for an os first and the computer will assume the slave is a storage drive so it is very important to have the operating system on the master drive. There is pins on the back of the drive, it is pretty straight forward.
Also you can have more then one operating system on the same computer. This will not cause your computer to not boot up. What will happen in a case like that is the operating system will usually boot from the master drive. If you should happen to have two operating systems on the master drive in say two partitions then you will be prompted which operating system you would like to boot.
Good luck.
2007-10-15 05:43:14 · answer #2 · answered by hydrogen_peroxide_usp 2 · 0⤊ 2⤋
Absolutely. Just get another hard drive - first make sure what kind of drive you can use in your computer - if you open up your case, and locate the hard drive - it will probably have a ribbon cable coming out (along with the power cable) - or if it is newer it will have a small SATA plug. Attach the new drive, and if it has the ribbon cable you will see a plug about halfway down the ribbon cable - plug this into the new drive, and plug a power cord into it. (By the way, anytime you have the case open - make sure your computer is turned off and unplugged). Make sure to set the little jumper on the back of the drive to 'slave' since the main one is usually master. Turn the computer back on - and go into bios (usually by pressing 'del' or 'f8' or something). Go into drive settings and see if it can see the drive. Then you should be able to boot up and see the second drive under 'my computer'. Most come formatted and ready to go, but if not, you might have to format it.
2016-05-22 18:36:04 · answer #3 · answered by ? 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Its a Fairly simple problem. You need to look on the back of the drive, between the ide connector and the power connector. you should see a jumper. You might need to take it out so that you can see the markings clearly for this next part. In that space between you will see probably about 10 pins, there should be there words printed one the PCB or the plastic piece around the pins. It should say CS, Master or slave.
The drive that has the operating system that is specific to that computer should be set to master, it is probably set to CS if it was by itself originally. The second drive that you want to put on that IDE ribbon should be set to Slave. sometime you can set it to CS and it will work but this depends on your BIOS.
You can use the second IDE controller on the motherboard if you want. typically if you have a CD/DVD-Rom they will put it on the second IDE controller. you simply repeat the process that I outlined for the first IDE controller.
If the second IDE controller wasnt used period you may need to turn it on in the BIOS, I know that Dell turns off what isnt being used from the factory. but that is really the only thing that you have to adjust in the BIOS. Hope this helps.
Last thought if the Pins that I mentioned earlier are not labeled, look on the Label on the drive it may contain some infromation on there about adjusting settings
2007-10-15 05:51:05 · answer #4 · answered by crutchduck 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The reason you are probably having problems is because you don't have the jumper settings done properly on your two hard drives. Your first hard drive should be set to 'master', while your second hard drive should be set to 'slave'. Connect both hard drives to the same IDE cable (the one that the original hard drive is connected to - the other cable should go to your optical drives). Depending on your motherboard, you may also need to make sure that your primary hard drive is connected first on the IDE cable (each IDE cable should have two connectors). If that doesn't work, try switching the order that the hard drives are connected to the IDE cable. As long as you have the jumpers set properly, your motherboard should recognize them properly.
2007-10-15 05:45:57 · answer #5 · answered by Smacks!!!!! 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋
There should be jumpers on the back of the hard drives. If you put them both on cable select you should be fine. The secondary hook up on the IDE cable is the one in the middle. the primary is on the end opposite the end hooked up to the motherboard. make sure your primary hard drive with the operating system on it is on the end position. If you do that and make sure the jumpers are in the right spot you should be fine. YOu can also position the jumpers so that your OS hard drive is master and your second hard drive is slave.
2007-10-15 05:42:51 · answer #6 · answered by Joe D 4 · 1⤊ 0⤋
First off your drive you want to boot from needs to be master. Usually drives have little jumpers on them that allow you to select this. Secondly, gotta get rid of the windows XP on the second drive. It will just make things easier. Thirdly the second drive needs to be jumpered to slave or cable select. Try these things out. It should help. I am sending you a site that may help explain and troubleshoot for you.
2007-10-15 05:45:33 · answer #7 · answered by general_jimbo 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The cable is not the issue. The issue is on the back of the other drive, make sure the jumper is set to slave and the other as master. Check the hard drive manual for the correct jumper settings.
2007-10-15 05:40:49 · answer #8 · answered by Phurface 6 · 3⤊ 0⤋
There are tabs on the harddrives to determine which will be the master and which the slave. If you're trying them both and they are both set to master it will not work. Change one to be a slave drive (the one you don't want to run windows on) and you're problem will be resolved. You can also put both on cable select and it will determine they're status according to how they are connected.
2007-10-15 05:41:12 · answer #9 · answered by Tony Y 2 · 1⤊ 0⤋
There are usually jumpers on the drives that can be positioned to make them master or slave. The original drive will have been set as master. The new drive should be set as slave, The secondary (slave) cannot be a bootable drive.
2007-10-15 05:42:45 · answer #10 · answered by Michael B 6 · 1⤊ 0⤋