New hard drive not recognized in BIOS

[TomC25]

Thanks to the heads up here I got the WD 45GB drive from Circuit City

I am just now trying to install it

I connect it all up as master so I can partition and format

The manual says position "A" for single master

The label on the drive says position "B" for single master

Upon boot up with position "A" when it says "detecting primary master" is sits there, it hangs

If I change the jumper to position "B" it says "none" and lets me boot to floppy

I have another hard drive and connected it up with same cable and it is recognized, switched back and still cannot recognize the new drive

Whats funny is if I hit F4 when it is detecting with position "A" it will boot to floppy, and I can use the floppy that came with the drive and it tells me it is partitioned and formatted but I still cannot recognize it

Can anyone help

Thanks

 

[Teatowel]

If you want it as your master drive, make sure it is in the first position on the IDE cable, and have the slave drive at the end of the cable. If you don't have a slave, leave the end of the cable bare.

I had a similar problem..at the time I didn't know that it was important where the device is placed on the IDE cable.

 

[TomC25]

so you are saying the first connection point on the cable from the motherboard connection is where the master drive goes

I had thought the master always goes on the furthest connection on the cable so that there is an open connection between the motherboard and drive on the cable

I guess when i get home I can try different placements

When I hooked up a different drive to the end connection it recognizes as primary master, so that is why I used that connection for the new drive

 

[Teatowel]

so you are saying the first connection point on the cable from the motherboard connection is where the master drive goes

Yes. I thought originally that it didn't matter..it doesn't on the Amiga. However, by experimemtation with a pile of hard drives I found it to be true. Make sure that the drive has the jumper in the master position, even if there is no second drive on the cable.

 

[TomC25]

Thanks for the info

I will try each connection and even try a different cable

If this does not work i will flash the motherboard BIOS

thanks again

 

[DaddyG]

Older ATA33 drives and cables can be connected any way, I've even used the middle connector on the mobo without problems. ATA66 is a different story due the extra ground wires, the blue connector needs to be at the mobo and the last (black) connector should be connected to the master. That leaves the grey connector for the slave.

 

[TomC25]

DaddyG

That is just what I thought

The gray connector (middle one) should be empty in a single drive situation

thanks

 

[TomC25]

ITS WORKING GREAT

I flashed my motherboard BIOS to the latest one and hooked up the new drive. It was detected right away.

I Installed Win98 and everything went fine

Thanks to all whe replied