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-   -   Need help with hard drives and BIOS (https://www.askmehelpdesk.com/showthread.php?t=819561)

  • Dec 18, 2015, 10:06 AM
    Jwrath
    Need help with hard drives and BIOS
    I have an old desktop with WindowsXP. This morning I've tried to take a hard drive and a DVD-RW from another tower with XP and plug them in the one I have. Problem is that one HDD is SATA and the other one is IDE. Whenever I plug the SATA drive BIOS recognizes it immediately but the Windows won't start. I've tried to plug the IDE HDD from the other computer but BIOS doesn't see it. How can I make the system to see both hard drives. I've tried all the jumper settings but it just ignores it. The IDE hard drive was working fine on the other tower, so it can't be fried. The problem started when I had both HDD plugged in. It got into XP but there was a message about "the system finished installation of new hardware" or something like that and it asked me to restart. After that restart XP went dead and I can't make the IDE to show itself in the BIOS in order to format it and install Windows 7.
  • Dec 19, 2015, 10:14 PM
    InfoJunkie4Life
    Quick questions if you can:

    The computer you are trying to install the HDD into, Brand/Model if possible?

    The HDD you are trying to install into it, Brand/Model if possible?

    When you configure the computer(s) to its original state, do they function normally?

    Quick tips:

    Never configure a computer with cd/dvd disk drive and a hard disk on the same IDE cable, by the way. Solo CD drives are usually set to slave and installed to middle of harness.

    Swap the 4 pin power plug between devices to ensure they are working. If you have a regular Ohm meter or auto test light you can test for voltage.

    There are 2 types of cables with the same 40 pin connector. There is a 40 wire and an 80 wire, this can cause compatibility issues, and can change master/slave positions.

    Proper jumper selection: Master/Primary HDD, Black Plug (Boot Drive). Slave HDD, Gray Plug (Secondary Drive). CS or Cable Select, Basically auto detecting depending on how MOBO is configured. Blue end of cable to MOBO.

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by http://www.mikeshardware.com/howtos/howto_connect_ide_hd.html
    The standard 40-wire ATA ribbon cable and the 80-wire cable give different drive behavior when using Cable Select. If using the standard 40-wire cable, the Master goes in the middle connector and the Slave goes in the end connector. If using the 80-wire cable, attach the blue end connector to the system board or host controller, the gray middle connector to the Slave, and the black end connector to the Master.

  • Dec 22, 2015, 11:20 PM
    Appzalien
    Would the win7 install disk see the IDE drive if it was the only drive (leave the sata out) and therefore format the drive during installation. Are both drives primary (have OS's on them)?
  • Dec 23, 2015, 07:08 AM
    smoothy
    Windows... Wince WIndows 95 at least. Loads hardware specific drivers with the intstall. Meaning its really not portable and you can't just plug it into just any other hardware and expect it to work.

    Second. IDE has a long row of pins (as well as being a parallel port)... SATA ( is a serial port) and a very compact connector with a l shape key at one end.

    One simply does not plug into the other without adapters. Which I am assuming you have.

    Info Junkie covered the IDE drive configurations fairly well so no need to go over that part again.

    Try with JUST the IDE drive in, as appzalien suggests. Don't daisy chain it on the same cable with the CD/DVD drive.
  • Dec 30, 2015, 10:11 AM
    sofarsogood
    If BIOS doesn't see it, nothing else will. Assuming your mobo has plugs for ide and sata, you can go into bios, storage or drives, turn on and off autodetect.
    If you can get the bios to recognize the drives, you can boot with any Linux 'live' cd/dvd (presuming your bios 'boot' order is set to CD/dvd first), like Ubuntu, PCLinuxOS, Uberstudent, or Puppy; or a cd with parted magic (all are available from distrowatch.com). The live cd will find the hard drives that your bios sees. You can (with any but parted magic) see the windows documents, and copy them to a usb key. You can format the drives for Linux (ext3) which is waaaay faster and safer than XP (or any Windows below 8.1), or for Windows (ntfs or fat 32). Then, if doing Windows (personally, I prefer peach Linux), start computer with Windows cd, install.

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