Dual hard drive setup

[roadrunner2348]

I'm trying to setup two hard drives on my comp. one has windows installed and the other isn't even formatted yet. My problem is i can't get my comp to recognize both. I just need to know the IDE settings (what jumpers and all).

 

[NuTechNot]

On same IDE cable? drive 1 primary MASTER, drive 2 as Primary Slave. jumpers on the hdds. Make sure your BIOS is
set to Auto detect hdd.
after physically installed, (if windows doesn't automatically detect and add new hardware) get back in BIOS and see if BIOS detects the 2nd hdd. Windows may (or may not) show the hdd at 1st boot... may have to reboot with boot disk, fdisk, change active disk (to the 2nd hdd) and formatt.

and hopefully someone with more experience installing hdds will come help answer questions here for ya ! ;-)

 

[johnjkr1]

All very sound advice, you didnt say what version of windows you have, but the drive wont be recognized by the OS untill its partitioned and formatted...with 98 you can do it with fdisk and format, with XP or 2k you can use disk management

 

[jelloinhawaii]

footnote: in Windows XP, Disk Management is just Start->Run->diskmgmt.msc
If you need specific jumper settings, go to the manufacturers' sites, or if you're lazy, post the models here, and hope someone looks them up for you... (after all, some of us do get bored at work sometimes 😉 )

 

[Zepper]

If you are using an 80-wire IDE cable, you should set both drives to Cable Select (CS) and plug the drive to be Master into the end connector (usually black) and the drive to be slave into the middle connector (usually gray). If the new drive is a very large one, you may need to partition and/or format it with the mfr's software which you can download from their web site if it didn't come along with the drive.
.bh.