Quick help needed with IDE slaver/master

[ProfJohn]

I am trying to install my second/slave HD into my new machine. I just popped it into the drive bay, took the IDE cable and unplugged it from factory drive and installed into slave drive and placed the second connector into the master.

Does it mater which of these plugs goes into which drive?

Right now when I power up it just sits there and looks at me, no hard drive work, do get an Boot (f12) or bio(f2) or something like that.

Do I need to place last connector on the cable into the master drive??

Also, in addition to adding slave drive I placed a wireless card into a PCI slot, can multiple upgrades at one time mess it up?

 

[Lord Evermore]

Well if one of the parts you put in there is causing a problem, then obviously you can't tell which one has caused the issue, so in that respect, multiple upgrades could mess it up. However if all components are working and properly installed, then no, multiple devices can be installed at once. Even if you just plug in a CPU, mainboard, and memory plus power, you've just "upgraded" half a dozen components.

First, determine exactly what the POST message is saying. Most likely it's saying that it doesn't detect any hard drives, or does not detect a master.

The proper way to install 80-wire cables is with the master at the end of the cable on the black connector. It's part of the standard. I'm still not really clear on whether it must be plugged in that way to work, or if a master will work on the middle with a slave on the end. Technically it seems like the only reasoning behind this is the cable-select feature, which is dependent on the cable positioning due to the presence or lack of detecting signal on a certain pin (which is cut on the end connector). Other than that, the signals are exactly the same. You could just unplug your slave and see if the master works where it is.

You might just have the drives jumpered so that there is a conflict. If one is set to cable-select, then it's going to try to configure itself as either master if it's on the end, or slave if it's in the middle, or just going to freak out if your cable isn't constructed properly for cable-select. Check the jumpers, try swapping which connectors they're plugged into, see what happens.

It's unlikely the wireless card is at fault, since it boots and doesn't show you any IDE devices.