Trouble detecting IDE drives

[Winky]

Building a PC for the first time and I need some help from this forum gurus.

Motherboard: ECS K7S5A
Processor: AMD Duron 950
Memory: 2 x 256MB SDRAM
Video: Pine AGP 16MB
Case: Antec SX830 with 300W PS
Harddrive: WD 80GB 7200
CD-ROM: Samsung 40X
Floppy: Generic
Keyboard: Generic

I'm using the default BIOS setting (just changed the system date and time.) It detects the floppy drive but not the harddrive and CD-ROM drive. Using the Windows 98 system disk, I'm able to see the DOS prompt but I need to use the CD drive to install Windows 98.

I have set the jumpers for both the harddrive and CD drive to master. I have checked the ribbon cables and connected the drives properly to the IDE connectors on the mother board.

When I boot up, I see the following messages:

Primary Master: Not installed
Primary Slave: Not installed
Secondary Master: Not installed
Secondary Slave: Not installed

Any suggestions?
Thanks.

 

[Boonesmi]

probably things you already checked, but here are a couple ideas...

in bios is it set to "auto" detect your ide drives?
are you sure the cable is hooked up right (meaning the red strip on the cable aligned with pin1 on both the drives and the mobo)?
are you sure the cables are ok?
are the drives getting power?
does the harddrive spin up?

 

[Winky]

Yes in the BIOS I have set to "Auto" for detecting drives.

1. How do I verify the harddrive and CD drive are getting power?

2. When I press the CD open button to get to the CD holder, nothing happens. Does this mean the CD drive is not getting the power?

3. I do not hear the harddrive spin up when I power on the machine.

4. How do I identify pin 1 on the IDE connector?

Sorry for bothering you guys with such newbie questions.
Thanks for your response.

 

[Boonesmi]

do you have the power cable from the power supply also plugged into the back of the drives?

if your drives are getting power when you hit the power button you can tell on the harddrive by hearing it spin up, and on a cdrom you will be able to tell by the little light on the front of the drive lighting up (the cdrom light may not stay on, but it will usually flash or do something)

as for the ide cable it depends on the motherboard as to which side is pin1 (on the k7s5a pin one is on the side closest to the pci slots)? but the side of the cable with a red strip is pin1, both the harddrive and the cdrom should have diagrams on them showing which side of the 40pin plug is pin1... on the motherboard itself you 2 ide ports, make sure the harddrive is on port 1 and the cdrom is on 2

 

[Winky]

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Boonesmi, your suggestions were pefect. I had not matched the pin1 on CD drive port with the red strip (the cd drive had the diagram.) I had connected the harddrive connectors properly because you can align it only one way. So I changed the ribbon cable from the one I got with ECS motherboard to the one that came with WD drive. Now when I boot-up, I see the CD drive blinking and the harddrive spinning up (just like you said.) and it detects both the IDE drives.

I used boot disk, formatted the new harddrive and installed Windows 98 and everything looks good.

I have a question on the WD 80GB harddrive. When it formatted in DOS using fdisk it said the size is around 75GB. Even Windows 98 indicates the size of my C: drive as around 75GB. Any idea what happened to the remaining 5GB?

Thanks again.

 

[Boonesmi]

2 things cause it

one is when a drive is formated some of its storage space is used for the file system format, so a formatted drive will always be smaller then when its not formatted

the second reason is there are 2 ways to measure size 1mb does not = 1million bytes (for example take any file and right click on it and select properties... depending on the size it will show something like this 136kb(139,264bytes)) harddrive manuf use the method that makes the drive look larger but your motherboard/windows use the other method... its just marketing

to make a long story short its normal for your 80gb drive to actually be 75gb