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| Thread ID: 41255 | 2004-01-04 23:40:00 | Can't get two hard drives to work | asdex (1488) | Press F1 |
| Post ID | Timestamp | Content | User | ||
| 205374 | 2004-01-04 23:40:00 | Hi, I have two hard drives, both Seagate a 20 and 40G but can't get them to work. I have the jumpers correct and in the correct plugs but when they are both connected the BIOS won't recognise them. Sometimes I get scrambled letters when one is detected. I have tried this before with the 20GB and an older drive and got the same thing. Sometimes after going back to one drive, it takes a couple of boots to get the drive configured. I have a Gigabyte mb 533 celeron. Any ideas? Thanks |
asdex (1488) | ||
| 205375 | 2004-01-05 00:01:00 | Have you tried putting them on different IDE cables? | hamstar (4) | ||
| 205376 | 2004-01-05 00:53:00 | Check the cable. It can get damaged when you swap drives around a lot. Mainly from the plugs getting pulled apart. You can get a replacement for $10. |
bmason (508) | ||
| 205377 | 2004-01-05 01:21:00 | That scarmbled letters error in the BIOS is the same kind of thing that happens if you have Both drives set as Master or Slave on the same IDE channel. Are you absolutely sure that you have one drive set as Master and the other set as Slave. As they are both different makes of drives the jumper setting may well be different, Master for a seagate is generally No Jumper (not always but most of the newer drives are). The other thing you might want to check is that you have the cables plugged in the right way round. Newer hard drives have a notch to make sure this is so but some of the older ones didn't so it was possible to put the IDE cable round the wrong way when connecting it to the drive. | Odin (227) | ||
| 205378 | 2004-01-05 02:19:00 | Maybe the motherboard uses CS rather than Master/Slave for selection. Have a good look at the cable. If there is one fewer wire going to one of the drive connectors, it's a CS one. | Graham L (2) | ||
| 205379 | 2004-01-05 10:02:00 | had a similar problem with a cd-writer and dvd drive. Make sure the ide cable and power cable are securely connected to the drives and that the ide cable is securely connected to the mother board. have you tried going into the bios and autodetecting the drives? as the current settings may be set as "user config/custom" one of the problems that I had was that due to my cd/w and dvd drive being at the top of the case the ide cable had a tendency to come loose. -Jacob |
Jacob4165 (199) | ||
| 205380 | 2004-01-05 23:16:00 | Thanks for those replies. I shall look at it tonight and check things over. When both Seagate drives are plugged in the BIOS won't detect either. I might try them on different channels but the cables are different. one has more cores in it than the other. Also I have heard a HD and CD drive on the same channel slows the HD down. Thanks |
asdex (1488) | ||
| 205381 | 2004-01-06 01:26:00 | It won't hurt to try it with both drives set to "CS" anyway. I'm not sure whether the "more cores" means {one cable with 80 conductors and three connectors and one cable with 40 conductors and three connectors} or {one cable with 40 conductors between connector1 and connector2 and 39 conductors between connector2 and connector3 }. An 80 wire cable is needed for IDE-100 (and above) drives to run at their maximum speed. The 40/39 conductor cable is for CS ... and won't operate two drives using Master/Slave selection. |
Graham L (2) | ||
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