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Adding Additional Hard Drive

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by tjnash09

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I wanted to add an additional hard drive to my desktop pc running WinXP. I secured it inside and attached the power and slave IDE cable which extended from the original Hard drive. However, when I turn on the PC it gives me the message that my primary HDD is about to undergo a critical failure and does not recognize the second HDD. When I disconnect the second HDD everything is normal again... how do I do this?

P.S. the second HDD does have its own OS and a view files.

10 replies

by softcorp.us

Hello...

Some comments and things to check:

1. Barring some legitimate hardware problem, what you are trying to do should work just fine. I suspect some kind of interference between the drives and that the error is incorrect.

2. Be sure that one drive is jumpered as "master" and the other one is jumpered as "slave". The concept of master and slave is a standard. But, how the jumpers are done is not. Some master drives must be jumpered as "slave present" if a slave drive is present. Check your drive maker's documentation for information about this.

3. A new-style 80-wire IDE ribbon cable CAN designate "master" and "slave" if both drives are jumpered as "cable select". When "cable select" is used, the end connector on the IDE cable is always the master and the middle connector is always the slave.

4. If the above does not resolve your problem, try connecting only the new drive to the IDE ribbon cable (as master) and observe what happens. If it works, you still have a compatibility problem. If it doesn't work, it suggests the new drive has a problem.

5. The warning about the impending critical failure is likely coming from the SMART (Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology) diagnostics.

6. If the two drives are otherwise OK but cannot "make nice" on the same IDE ribbon cable, try connecting them to two different IDE controlles and separate IDE ribbon cables.

Does this help?

-----Steve Jackson

CEO/CSA
Software Corporation (Softcorp)
http://www.softcorp.us/probono
Advanced pro bono tools and utilities free for personal use

by softcorp.us

Regarding: How do I jumper a drive?

The way a drive must be jumpered varies from drive to drive. Usually there is a diagram on the drive itself that describes this. If your drive does not have this, visit the manufacturer's web site. Most drive makers have this information readily available online.

Regarding: Unable to format in Windows.

This is a bad sign and indicates there is something wrong with the drive. I've never seen this happen unless the drive is bad.

On Windows XP: Run CHKDSK /R /X to thoroughly examine the disk, find errors, fix them, and isolate bad sectors. Then, try format again. If the drive continues to give problems, replace it. You shouldn't drive a car with bad brakes. You should use a drive that doesn't appear healthy. Storage is pretty cheap these days vs. your time and lost data. Good luck.

by dmiles

Check the jumper on the back of the second drive and make sure you have the jumper set as slave,follow the diagram on the drive itself.
Primary-Master
Second - Slave

Boot your system,when the startup screen appears press the designated key to enter bios setup,check the drive configuration to make sure that both drives are set to auto,with the primary as the first boot device

by ozi eagle

Hi,

As all above, but also check your original HDD, as some have different jumpering for master with no slave and master with a slave.

by tjnash09

Ok I jumped it correctly and windows recognized it, but now i want to reformat the drive. I right clicked on the new drive in windows explorer and ran a format, right when it got to the end it said windows failed to format drive, windows cannot format drive, and now i can't use it, what should I do?

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