re help installing second ide drive bill willis willisw willisw eng clemson edu wrote in article qn iv darwin sura net wbarnes sura net bill barnes writes recently my cousin got a second internal ide drive a seagate mb i can look up the model number if it s important and i ve been trying to help him install it i ve got a vested interest since my machine s busted and i have to use his until i get mine fixed he already has a seagate mb ide hd again i forget the model number but i can find out anyway i can t seem to get the bloody thing up i ve managed to get one or the other drive up with the other disconnected but not both at the same time whenever i try the thing hangs during bootup never gets past the system test the ide controller s instruction sheet says it supports two drives i think i ve configured the cmos correctly the power s plugged in properly i even learned about the master slave relationship that two hds are supposed to have didn t know pcs were into s m and i think i configured the jumpers properly the mb one is the master the new mb one is the slave deleted many many thanks in advance this is practically an emergency i have two papers to do on this thing for monday help william barnes suranet operations wbarnes sura net voice fax disclaimer i don t speak for suranet and they don t speak for me i ve been told by our local computer guru that you can t do this unless you perform a low level format on your existing hard drive and set your system up for two hard drives from the beginning i took him at his word and i have not tried to find out any more about it because i m not going to back everything up just to add another hdd if anyone knows for sure what the scoop is i would like to know also thanks in advance also bill willis do not do a low level format on an ide drive unless you have the executable for doing so supplied by the manufacturer these are available from bbs s or mail but the mail version costs a nominal fee in addition to the master slave jumper on an ide drive there is also another jumper to indicate whether a slave is present get it right the cabling is not an issue as long as pin goes to pin goes to pin no twisting or swapping on an ide cable be sure of pin on all three components do not make assumptions guesses are ok but assumptions are bad if the cable and jumpers are correct and the cmos setup is correct then you may have to do an fdisk followed by a high level format i have never personally found this necesary but perhaps there is something gone wrong with the data on the disks probably not but i understand your predicament you will probably throw salt over your shoulders wear funny clothes and do a spooky sounding chant while dancing around the room if someone said it might help good luck gordon lang
