Adding hard drive problem

urwick · #1 08-02-2003, 09:13 PM

I am using Windows XP Home Edition, 2.5GH pentium 4,128MG RAM, Western Digital 30G HD. My previous computer stopped
working. I have physically added the Maxtor HD from the non-working computer to my new (DELL 4550) computer. Using the "add hardware" option from the control panel, the DELL computer recognizes the Maxtor HD, identifying it correctly, and recognizes and accepts the driver for it. However, I am unable to assign a drive letter to the Maxtor, and am unable to access the data on it. Can anyone advise me? Thanks in advance for the help.

Urwick

jmatt · #2 08-02-2003, 09:55 PM

http://www.infohq.com/Computer/addin...ive-review.htm
Installing a Second Hard Drive; Demonstrated
with the Maxtor 13.6 GB DiamondMax Plus .

Also , a well written site which shows this step with good illustrations on adding a 2nd Hard
Drive.
http://members.aol.com/mbs1058/2nd_hd.html

http://www.pcnineoneone.com/howto/idedrv1.html
http://pcsupport.about.com/compute/p.../aa010300a.htm
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Troy/6883/newide.html
http://www.epinions.com/content_917086340?sp=ink
http://www.dansdata.com/sbs1.htm
http://www.tech-review.com/review.pl?id=75&page=1
http://www.footslog.com/articles/Hardware/ha0001.htm
http://www.techtv.com/callforhelp/ho...322450,00.html

How to Prevent Drive Letters from Changing After You Add a Hard Disk or a CD-ROM (Q282530)
The information in this article applies to:
Microsoft Windows Millennium Edition
Microsoft Windows 98 Second Edition
Microsoft Windows 98
Microsoft Windows 95
http://support.microsoft.com/default...;EN-US;q282530

urwick · #3 08-02-2003, 11:44 PM

Jmatt,
Thanks for your response. Unfortunately, all of the sites you
suggested, after they cover the jumper settings, cabel select setting, etc., require formatting and partitioning of the HD I'm adding; if I do that, I lose all of my files on that HD, No? That is my problem; I need to access the data on the HD I'm adding.
Any other suggestions?

Thanks again

LooseChippings · #4 08-03-2003, 02:20 AM

Once you have set the jumpers on the drive and connected the power and data cables ...

boot your computer and enter BIOS

detect your HD in BIOS and reboot.

Windows should now be able to read the drive.

Just for info, your system spec for XP could do with more RAM than 128 MB, I would recommend adding another 512 MB

jmatt · #5 08-03-2003, 04:49 AM

urwick , not knowing much about your old HD , the links above were to provide you the reading material to find the missing link to your problem .

As LooseChippings mentions it may be the jumper settings , play around with them , the master HD may have to use a jumper setting other than master , if you have the 2 HD's on the same cable or the 2nd HD is an old one .
CS may be the option .

Also you may need to try these , using a seperate IDE channel for each drive .

http://www.pcnineoneone.com/howto/idedrv4.html?
Installing a New Master IDE Hard drive or Secondary Hard Drive.

Below are the steps for installing a hard drive (steps 1-7 refer to the secondary drive), and continuing on will complete the process for a new master IDE hard drive.

Depending on how the jumper settings are situated, the current (old hard drive) jumper settings will most likely be set to master. The CD-ROM could be set to master on the secondary IDE channel or as slave on the primary IDE channel. Most likely you will also be using the current (old hard drive) as a second hard drive for additional space. Let's begin:

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

http://www.epinions.com/content_917086340?sp=ink
Master or Slave?

When using more than one hard drive on a computer, you must designate one drive a master and the other a slave before you install them. Your PC uses the terms "master" and "slave" to tell apart two drives on the same IDE channel. In most cases the master is the hard drive your computer will boot from. The term "slave" refers to any secondary device connected to the same IDE channel.

Before installing your new hard drive, locate the diagram for changing the jumper setting to a slave. The diagram depicts different sets of pins with a black box around them. First look on the top of your drive. If it's not there, see if your drive came with printed instructions or check the manufacturer's website.

To change the jumper, you may need to have a set of tweezers handy. Use them to reposition the jumper between the four male prongs and the IDE ribbon connector. Match the settings depicted in the diagram on top of the hard drive to make sure you do this correctly.

http://www.epinions.com/content_917086340?sp=ink

urwick · #6 08-07-2003, 09:06 PM

Thanks again to both Loose Chippings and Jmatt. XP Device Manager detects my Maxtor 5T040H4 HD and reports status as "device working properly"; it is satisfied with my driver: I have entered BIOS and verified that "Primary Drive 1" is identified as the Maxtor, "primary Drive 0" correctly ID'd as WDigital. Disk Management shows Maxtor as "disk 1" = 38.16GB NTFS, Healthy (Active), all of this showing as primary partition, BUT, it won't let me assign a drive letter to it, preventing access.

The DELL manual calls for setting 2nd (Maxtor) HD jumpers for CS, power and IDE ribbons using middle connectors, which I did, no joy. I then tried setting the jumpers to "Slave" setting, attempting to hard code, as I have heard CS doesn't always work as advertised, no joy. In short, XP detects my added HD, approves of driver, shows it w/ NTFS partition, but I can't get to it. One more thing, all of the files on the Maxtor were added while using XP Professional Edition, of which I no longer have a copy, the computer to which I've added the Maxtor uses XP Home.
Could this make a difference?

Thanks in advance for any and all responses.

LooseChippings · #7 08-08-2003, 02:11 AM

Just to simplify things here ...

BIOS does not assign Drive Letters.

BIOS identifies Disks as ...

Primary Master & Primary Slave on IDE Channel 0.

Secondary Master & Secondary Slave on IDE Channel 1.

In each case you have one diskwith the Jumper set at Master & one set at Slave.

You cannot have 2 Masters or 2 Slaves on the same channel.

If possible stay away from CS (Cable Select)

It is probably best if you start from scratch ...

Disconnect the Data Cables from both your HDs and Optical Drives.

Identify your System Boot Drive and ensure the Jumper is set to Master, connect the Drive to the IDE Channel with the lowest number (normally 0).

Boot you machine and enter BIOS, setup your your drive and set all other drives to NONE.

Boot into Windows then shutdown.

Set the Jumper on your second HD to Slave, connect the Drive to the IDE Channel with the lowest number (normally 0).

Boot you machine and enter BIOS, setup your your drive.

Boot into Windows and see if Explorer has identified your HD, then shutdown.

Set the Jumper on your Optical Drive to Master, connect the Drive to the IDE Channel with the highest number (normally 1).

Boot you machine and enter BIOS, setup your your drive.

Boot into Windows and see if Explorer has identified your Optical Drive.

If you have a second Optical Drive Set the Jumper on your Optical Drive to Slave, connect the Drive to the IDE Channel with the highest number (normally 1).

Boot you machine and enter BIOS, setup your your drive.

Boot into Windows and see if Explorer has identified your Optical Drive.

yunlin12 · #8 08-19-2003, 12:25 PM

Hi all,

I just had the exact same problem. I got a new Dimension 4550, with a 40GB WD and a CD-ROM, and Win XP Home. I wanted to move a 30GB Quantom HD from my old machine to the new one. It's formated as NTFS by Win2000 Pro on my old machine. I also salvaged the DVD-ROM and CD-RW from my old machine to replace the CD-ROM on my new PC.

When I put the new drives in, I had everything set on CS. Hard drives on primary IDE, and Opticals on the secondary (Dimension 4550 came with pretty short IDE cables and wouldn't have reached another way).

When I booted up, all the hardware were recognized. However, WINXP sees 30GB on the new HDD, but don't see the NTFS file system on it, or the data it contains. I was able to format the drive then assign a drive letter to it, and put new data on it (copying >20GB of data from a backup PC through 802.11b!!!)

Does anyone know why this is? I know Win2K tags all the HDD's on a machine, and it's problem in certain situation (like screwing up a Tivo HDD's). Does that also prevent Win XP from reading it? Seems pretty stupid.

charliep · #9 08-31-2003, 07:34 AM

My answer to similar problem. Have a 166 MMX machine. I had a primary master drive C 2.1 GB plus a primary slave drive D 586KB. My secondary master was a CD Rom and no secondary slave. Had floppy drive A and a Zip 100 drive E parallel port connection. One limitation was that I have only 3 power leads for my HDDs and the CD Rom, so had to unplug one to connect up my extra (third) HDD.
I wanted to replace my drive D with a second hand 2.1GB drive. It is a Quantum 2.1 Fireball ST. The CMOS would acknowledge it and the device manager listed it but I couldn't add a drive letter. Tried connecting it as secondary slave and in place of my primary slave drive D. Tried all CMOS choices. NO go.
Searched the web high and low. Learnt that some other HDD would not function as a slave when the CD Rom on same slot was master. So I switched the CD Rom to secondary slave and connected new HDD as secondary master. (Had to disconnect primary slave to use its power lead.) Rebooted after every change. Same problem. Changed my CD Rom from drive F to drive R and my zip from drive E to Z. Still no good. Set my new drive (in control panel, device manager, double click new drive & settings) to "removable drive" which allowed me to set a start and end drive letter. Selected G for both. Rebooted and voila I had G as my new drive letter. I had left CMOS choices as auto. Unclicked the "removable drive" option, rebooted and lost the drive letter again. So I have left the new drive as "removable" and was able to format it no problems. Disconnected my CD Rom and reconnected my former second drive (back as primary slave) and it shows up everywhere too. So I had 3 hard drives all showing and useable so I could transfer data from the second to my new third hard drive. Once done I disconnected the old second HDD and reconnected my CD Rom again and we're in business. Have been able to change drive names to suit, but have to leave new drive as "removable". So which of these changes was critical I'm not totally sure, but I think shifting the CD Rom to slave was essential and also selecting "removable" for this particular Quantum drive.
Best of luck.

hotwu · #10 10-08-2003, 04:06 PM

here's your answer ~ you need to use the disk management utility within xp, 2000 or 2003 server to activate your drive:

click here to read more