New Harddrive, problems of course!

[Jimmy]

Hi

I have been given a new 160GB h/drive and I am installing it but have run into some dificulties:

I have pluged it into a IDE cable and to the power supply, when I started my pc it did the normal "new hardware" thingy were it installs a driver to. But the drive wont show up in my computer or explorer.

Is there anything I havent done to tell the computer about the new volume.

And also my new drive is touching the floopydisc drive (its getting rather cramped in my case) is this a proablem? they are both screwd properly just touching a little.

Thanks in advance
James

[moeraki]

I know nothing about Computers so don't flame
But
When I added a new HD and got to the same point
I took it to neibourhood 10yr old and he said it needed setting up in the Bios
then proceeded to put data all over the screen
did a bit of twiddling and as he was doing it I mentioned word Partition so he did that.

No problems since so musta known more than me HaHa but thats not hard
ps I am running XP
Moe

[creator2003]

just set as a slave drive there a four sets of pins on the top of the h/d look for a digram on the h/d telling you master /slave then just move the platic cover that will be over one set of pins to the slave set ,,,trouble shoot your problem aswell just so you know what i mean "setting h/d to slave drive "
hope this helps the bios shouldnt need changing ...

[Zöltuger]

yep, that sounds about right
1) check power and data are both plugged into the hard disk (you should be using the same data cable as the other hard disk)
2) check jumper is set to slave
3) check the bios to see if it's present (if it's not, recheck cables/jumper)

if you're still having issues, your motherboard may need a firmware update...

[Jimmy]

okay thanks, I just got home and am about to give it anothor shot.

You say it needs to be conected to same as other h/drive but thats not possible as the IDE cable is a real mess and wont bend around, so its pluged in to the same as the DVD drive.
I have also got the jumper set to "slave (01)" or something like that.

[AlisterC]

When I installed my extra hard drive I found a program on the website of the hd drive manufacturer that would install it and set it up and get it running for me.

For example... http://www.seagate.com/support/disc/dri ... scwiz.html

That might help you out a bit as well James if you are not so experienced in doing this sort of thing (like I wasn't )

[Jimmy]

So I should plug it into the same cord as the other hardrive? Sadly this isn't really possible The cords are really inpractical.....

I have asked this guy I know to come give me a hand to night so hopefully hell know

James

[ZK-MAT]

I'm not sure this will come across well, but I'll try...


Your system will have two IDE channels, lets call them IDE 0 and IDE 1. You can usually plug in up to two items per IDE channel. Usually in a basic system IDE 0 has your hard drive and IDE 1 has a CD ROM. Both are at the end of the IDE cables and set as 'master'. You can connect anything you really like to the IDE's as long as the jumpers are set correctly according to where they are on the cable. At the end is Master, in the middle is Slave.

CD and DVD drives are usually marked MA, SL and CS, for Master, Slave and Cable Select, and HDD's usually have two rows of 4 pins with a diagram on the HDD showing where the jumpers go. Cable Select should work things out for you on its own but it rarely does...

It is best to have the HDD's on the same IDE channel but it's not absolutely necessary. You can really twist those wide cables mate, or get round ones from DSE.
If you just cannot physically get it working I would try putting the HDD at the end of the second IDE lead, as Master.

Preferred:

Code: Select all


IDE 0                                  IDE 1
 |                                         |
 |                                         |
HDD - Slave                           Empty
 |                                         |
 |                                         |
HDD - Master                      DVD / CDROM - Master


With yours you may have

Code: Select all

IDE 0                                  IDE 1
 |                                         |
 |                                         |
Empty                                DVD / CDROM - Slave
 |                                         |
 |                                         |
HDD - Master                          HDD - Master



Remember to check your BIOS as it boots. It should detect it, partitioned or not. If it doesn't you may have a problem with the drive.

Matt

[HardCorePawn]

If you're using Windows XP (Pro), you may also need to setup the drive within the computer management console, to format it/assign a drive letter etc:

1. Start Settings Control Panel Adminstrative Tools Computer Management
2. Storage Disk Management

This should show you all the drives, partitions, volumes etc:



You will probably see the disk as "Disk 1", but it will not have any partitions or a drive letter assigned. If you right click on the bar to the right of the disk label, you should be able to format the drive and set a drive letter etc.

But as mentioned earlier, you need to ensure that the drive is showing in the BIOS. If its not, then there is no way that windows will be able to see it.

cheers,
HCP

[Jimmy]

Thanks everyone, I got the guy I know from over the road to come help me and he was certainly alot less cerfull than me inside my computer and managed to get the h/drives on the same cable!

And then we just went to the computermanagment and made a new partition,wainted about an hour for it to format and its all working now!

153GB!!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks
James