Hard drive help

[crisp82]

Hi,
I have 2 spare hard drives that I was given and I have tried connecting to my computer so that I can run a multi-o/s system, but after I connect either and set the jumpers to slave or master my system immediately slows down and becomes unstable. After many attempts at formatting them, I have given up.

The 2 drives are as follows:

JTS Corp 2.2g
Cavalier 3.2g

I run on FAT32, is it possible that the other drives are NTFS, and as such aren't picked up by 98?

If they are broken, are there any utilities to repair them at all?

Thanks

 

[DaiShan]

I would put these drives on their own channel if I were you because they are going to be slower than your other hdd, that said, first you need to format each drive, then you need to pick one to be master and one to be slave and select them via the onboard jumpers, do you have an understanding of how to run fdisk? Let us know if you need further instructions.

 

[crisp82]

I'm not sure about fdisk, but I have tried formatting though windows 98 and through DOS. When I installed the cavalier drive in my mum's computer it worked ok, but when I put it on mine it just slowed up my computer with no luck.

I now have windows xp on my computer, is there anything that can be done from here?

Should I put the Hard Drive on my second IDE port, as I have a Hard Drive and CDROM running on the other?

Thanks for the help, it's much appreciated

 

[spanky]

i would run fdisk real quick just to see what partitions exist on each hd. if the partitions are ntfs, then u know why win98 won't see them. if it's fat(32) and windows won't detect them... i'd just try recreating the partitions. before doing so, i'd boot off a bot disk and see if it's possible to backup data (prolly not likely).

 

[crisp82]

I'm not fussed about whatever data is on the disks as they used to be someone elses and I think the're empty anyway. I would jus like to be able to run a multi- o\s system. Are the disks repairable?

 

[spanky]

are u sure they are busted? if u take out ur current hard drives and make one of the drives in question the single stand alone disk... boot to a floppy and see if u can browse the c:. if it's ntfs, u'll get some screen saying u might have a virus, ur disj is not formatted, or it's using ntfs. in that case, chances r that u will either need to get some ntfs boot floppies, or download the hard drive install utils from the drives manufacturer.

 

[crisp82]

I had the virus screen when I tried to format my Cavalier 3.2g in Windows 98se, but the format would not complete. Now that I am running XP should I just hook the drives up and fromat as NTFS?

Whats the best setting for 2/3 hard drives and a CDROM as far as setting jumpers to master or slave?

Should I just hook up the extra drives on the second IDE port as Master and Slave, or is it better to run both my current Hard drive and CDROM as Master?

Does it make a difference as far as perfomance is concerned?