difficulty with HDD config?

[SGtheArtist]

Hello,

I am having some difficulty configuring my hard drive setup on my new computer. This is how I have it setup:

Mobo boot to Floppy, SCSI, CDROM

Adaptec 19160 Host with Seagate 18.4GB X15 36LP

Primary IDE Master - Western Digital 80GB WD800JB
Primary IDE Slave - Toshiba 12xDVD-ROM
Secondary IDE Master - Western Digital 80GB WD800JB
Secondary IDE Slave - Plextor 12x10x24 CD-WR

I have the WD800JB's in Kingwin removable Hard drive bays so I can transport them to my other machine and pass files back and forth.

I have been having a problem trying to setup the WD800JB's as storage drives. I have determined through troubleshooting that the hard drives are good and the cables are good.

I can install W2K on the SCSI with just one of the WD800JB installed and everything seems to be fine, W2K after install can see and use the drive, however if I put the second WD800JB in W2K doesn't see it as being formated or anything (which it is).

I've tried to use Western Digitals Data Life Guard but I believe do to the SCSI it doesn't work so I've used both IBM Disk Manager, Seagate DiscWizard, and WinMe boot disk (fdisk & format) to install the drive.

After formating all three drives using fdisk and format at the command prompt I was able to begin the W2K installation to the point where it showed every drive formated and selectable for W2K installation, however after installing W2K it showed one of the WB800JB's as being unformatted and unusable.

The reason I said earlier that I don't believe it to be the IDE cables is because when I would switch the drive W2K said wasn't formatted and the other WD800JB positions on the IDE chains and the unformatted WD800JB would follow the corresponding HDD, this also eliminates the possibility that it could have been the removable HDD bay.

Though this suggests that it is the hard drive that is the problem, I am using a brand new RMA'ed WD800JB that I received for RMA'ing a WD800JB that was giving me the same problem. So this is way I stated that it isn't the Hard drives.

I'm really at a loss as to what I'm doing wrong does anyone have any suggestions or maybe even encountered this problem before themselves.

Thanks for everyones help.

 

[emjem]

This is mostly a bump for ya, but I'm wondering if you are using the correct Win2k drivers for the scsi. Incorrect drivers can cause strange things to happen.

I presume you have the hard drive jumpers in the right positions.

 

[SGtheArtist]

Hey Thanks for the bump

I appreciate it, I am using the latest drivers and adapter BIOS from adaptec. In fact everything works fine as long as I don't have the second WD800JB in the system it seems like there is a conflict somewhere that I'm not seeing.

On a side note the Plextor CD-WR that is on the IDE channel that the second drive resides can be seen by W2K and is usable during installation because my W2K is an upgrade CD whether the second drive is in the system or not.

 

[SGtheArtist]

I received a suggestion that some motherboards do not like hard drives set to master on both IDE channels so I conducted a troubleshooting test.

That is if the motherboard did not support Harddrives on both IDE channels as being set to master then it wouldn't matter which hard drive was in the machine so . . .

I pulled the second WD800JB out and put in my Ghost image drive (seagate barracuda IV 60GB) and restarted into W2K and windows saw both hard drives, well all hard drives (SCSI, WD800JB, Cuda IV) in the following config:

Mobo boot Floppy, SCSI, CDROM

SCSI adapter (Adaptec 19160) with Seagate X15 36LP

Primary Master - WD800JB
Primary Slave - Toshiba 12xDVD-ROM
Secondary Master - Seagate Cuda IV
Secondary Slave - Plextor CD-WR

Their is one difference though, the Seagate Cuda IV is formatted with half the drive as the primary partition and the other half as an extened partition with one logical drive.

I have a feeling that the WD800JB's when together in the system are having problems with each other or maybe my formatting process is incorrect.

 

[SGtheArtist]

Any other ideas? If not maybe someone has suggestions on where I could go that would to find the answer?

 

[SGtheArtist]

I have solved this problem. I found a topic on the WD Knowledge base that suggested disabling UDMA to get a slave drive working and so I took this action for my problem and it fix the problem. Thanks to everyone who has assisted in this matter.