Desktop

Ask something
Discussion Locked

Two Hard Drives?

0 helpful
6 replies

by richard

Closed to new repliesThis discussion is closed. It stays readable, but it takes no new replies.

I am trying to duild another computer and am haveing trouble geting it to accept a second hard drive. I ran my system diagnostics program and it found the second hard drive but neather the installer or system resource or divice manerger list any thing but the one master drive.
My question is what do I do now?

Thank You

6 replies

by thechas

Start by checking the jumper settings on both drives.
One (C:) should be set to Master W/Slave present.
The other (D:) should be set to Slave.

Some IDE cables are cable-select type cables. On these, the connector that is plugged into the drive determines which is master and which is slave.

Next, is the second drive partitioned?
Windows will not assign a drive letter until the drive has been partitioned.

When running fdisk with 2 drives present, you need to use the option to change which drive is being setup.

Finally, some drive brands still do not "play well together" on the same IDE cable.
Some demand to be the Master drive.
Other combinations may never work.

I almost always use only drives from the same manufacture on a common IDE cable.

1 final note:
Unless you are using Windows XP, use caution when partitioning the second drive.
If both drives have extended partitions and logical drives, the default Windows drive letter assignments may surprise you.
For 2 drives with 1 logical drive on each, the letter assignments are as follows:
C: Primary DOS partition on Master drive.
D: Primary DOS partition on Slave drive.
E: Logical drive on Master drive
F: Logical drive on Slave drive.

A good article on partition strategy is posted at www.aumha.org

Chas

by parvus1202

One more thing, if you did pui it on slave and you see it on boot up, then you need to manage your HDD. Rclick my computer/manage, under storage click disc management, your second drive should come up there,(if not then you have made a bad connections)then rclick the second drive/format. After formatting you should be able to see it when you open my computer.

by dgacheru

Check the manufacturers site and see whether you need an updated firmware for your harddisk.
Also set the jumpers to cable select and connect the hard disk to a different IDE channel.

by rohit kumar d

some hdd doesnot work on same cable try connection a different cable. check wether u r able to ascess this hard disk in dos mode. if yes try other utlities volman, pqmagic etc to see weather the hdd is working or not

by buddhaprince

Make sure your master is at the end of the IDE cable, attach the new data HD to the middle of the IDE cable and put a pin clip on the data drive in the slave or cable select position.
Format the drive.

This discussion is closed to new replies.