Topic: Second Hard Drive Problem

[Big_Boss]

Hi,
Over the last few days ive been trying to fit a second harddirve to my comp. The second HD is a 20GB quantum fireball and the one already installed is an 80GB Western Digital.

So far ive tried (if i done it right  ): Setting one as master and one as slave and connecting them on the same IDE cable. Connecting them on a different IDE cable. Leaving the jumpers of the slave HD off. But still nothing.

All that happens is when i boot, the system sort of hangs at the bios screen for about 10 secs where it displays "Detecting IDE Drives..." after which it shows only my 80GB drive as being present and wont boot into windows.

I dont really know what to try next so some advice would be greatly appreciated.  

Boss

P.S If it helps, my motherboard is a Gigabyte 7VAXP shown Here

[daveeb]

probably trying to teach my granny to suck eggs but did you check the pin setting on the slave drive i.e. was it configured to be a slave.  if it was set as master it wont work and if it was set to cs (cable select) it'll only work if your primary is also set to cs.

i'm sure sandra will be along soon and there isnt much she cant tell you about installing hard drives.

 

[Big_Boss]

Yeah im pretty sure i did have one set one to slave and one set to master, and the 80GB that was set to master was plugged into IDE1 as per the mobo manual. The CD and DVD drives are on the same IDE cable and are plugged into IDE2.

And the second HD was plugged into IDE3.

Boss

[Sandra]

Hi BB it sounds like you havent set it up in your BIOS.
Have you set it to auto detect it.I would suggest putting it back as a slave on the primary IDE cable making sure that the jumpers are set correctly as master and slave respectively.
It may also be worth checking that the master is connected on the end connection and the slave on the middle one as that sometimes matters.
Another thought occurs to me,is it the correct IDE cable that you are using.
Some of the newer drives require the 80 wire cable not the older 40 one(cant think of the correct name now   )
Hope this helps  

[Big_Boss]

Thanks for that Sandra, ill give it a go later. I found this kind of guide that came with the motherboard and it says

Please connect first HD to IDE1 and connect CDROM to IDE2 (which is how my comp is the now)
Then it says, if you wish to use IDE3 and 4 please use it in unity with BIOS. Then install the correct driver to have proper operation. For details, please refer to the RAID manual.

What does unity with bios mean and how do i do it  

Thanks in advance.

Boss

[Sandra]

I havent any experiencewith a raid board BB unfortunately but I would assume that its just to enable the raid controller in the bios as it will probably be disabled at the moment and then it would probably need the drivers installing for the raid part to work correctly.
I am not sure where a raid board finds the extra IRQs for the extra drives that you can add so maybe its something to allow them to be shared with the existing ones but we will probably have to wait fot Adept,Bat or Lobo to fully explain that one sorry  

[Adept]

Big_Boss, if the second HDD is on a channel of its own it needs to be set as Master.

As Sandra said, it then just a question of allowing the BIOS to detect the drive. There is usually a "Detect IDE drives" option in the BIOS to do this for you. Alternatively you can the drive detection to Auto on some boards.

As for the RAID; once it is enabled it should behave just like a normal IDE. I haven't used a board with built-in RAID so I'm not certain

If you are running XP, drivers should load automatically for the RAID, otherwise there'll be some drivers on your mobo's driver CD that you'll need to install.

[Big_Boss]

Big_Boss, if the second HDD is on a channel of its own it needs to be set as Master.

I think that could be it. When i tried it on a seperate IDE cable i had it set to slave  :-[

Anyway ill go try it just now and ill be back with the results

Boss

[Big_Boss]

Ok got a bit further. Done as Adept said with each on seperate cables and both set to master. On the first BIOS screen still only the 80GB drive is detected. I then went into the bios and changed the only setting i could see to do with RAID from "ATA" to RAID

Windows will now boot. (With it set to ATA, windows hung at the loading windows screen)

Once booted windows installed RAID drivers i think and prompted me for my mobo cd which i inserted.

However still only one HD, the 80GB one is detected, however, the last bios screen before the windows screen comes up, the other HD IS there.

I dont know what to do now. Assistance would be appreciated.

Hope this makes sense

Boss

[Adept]

So BIOS is seeing the drive, but Windows isn't? It's usually the other way around  

I would say that the RAID/ATA switch needs to be on ATA. Are there any further options related to that one about detecting the drive?

What OS are you using by the way Big_Boss?

[Big_Boss]

Yeah im talking to a m8 about that just now actually, ill put it back to ATA.

Im on XP Pro.

Boss

[Adept]

If the drive is usable, XP will see it BB, even if the BIOS doesn't.

Are you sure the drive is OK?

[Sandra]

Would it not be better to forget about the extra complication of the raid part of the bios/board and either put the new drive back as a slave on the primary IDE or even as a master by itself on the primary IDE just to see if it auto detects it as its booting up  

[Big_Boss]

Im going to stay away from RAID. I dont understand it really and i dont know what im doing. Ive just finished talking with a m8 and he thinks he knows what ive done wrong so ive got something to try.

Ill be back  

[Big_Boss]

WOO HOO!!!!!!  

I followed what you and my m8 said and it worked first time  

I connected them both on the same IDE cable with one as master and one as slave and changed the RAID setting back to ATA. I also made sure the master drive was on the end connector (as sandra said  )

Im sure this is exactly how i had it originally but obviously not, but now its working.

Thanks to all of you (and my m8, who i now owe an E-Beer  )

Now i got the easier task of finding stuff to fill it with  

Boss