newbie alert needs help

DRUE1 · Post by **DRUE1** » Tue Dec 28, 2004 1:10 pm

hello all ive got a barracuda 7200.7 40gb hard drive and i dont know if im wireing it up right cos its not working how do i make it as a slave drive because i dont under stand what is on the label please help

Post by **Ralf Hutter** » Tue Dec 28, 2004 1:25 pm

Slave on a Cuda IV is jumperless. Can't get any easier than that!

DRUE1 · Post by **DRUE1** » Tue Dec 28, 2004 2:29 pm

so it does not need the metal bits joining the prongs together

DRUE1 · Post by **DRUE1** » Tue Dec 28, 2004 2:47 pm

ive tryed it and still no joy my pc does not pick it up on my pc so now im lost

Slaugh · Post by **Slaugh** » Tue Dec 28, 2004 5:25 pm

First of all, do you hear your hard disk spinning when you boot the system? And is the drive properly plugged (there's 2 cables to plug, one from the power supply and the IDE cable). When you plug the IDE cable, make sure you plug it the good way (pin 1 is the red strip on the IDE cable).

If everything is properly plugged and the drive is spinning, check if your BIOS see the hard disk. If the HDD is not set to "auto" in the BIOS and you replaced it with a brand new one, you may end up with wrong parameters for heads/cylinders/etc. (except if it's the exact same drive). Try to redetect the drive from the BIOS, if it takes forever, then you may have trouble with your wiring or the drive itself. If you still have problems after doublechecking everything, try unplugging all IDE devices (including CD-ROM drives) except for the HDD and see if it help.

Post by **Rusty075** » Tue Dec 28, 2004 5:29 pm

...and make sure your other drive is set to Master too.

Jan Kivar · Post by **Jan Kivar** » Wed Dec 29, 2004 2:55 am

Rusty075 wrote:...and make sure your other drive is set to Master too.

... especially if your other drive is a WD. They have this odd Single setting, which needs to be changed to Master when a slave is present.

Cheers,

Jan

DRUE1 · Post by **DRUE1** » Wed Dec 29, 2004 3:43 am

right still no joy when the pc boots up i can feel the new one moving but no light comes on like my one i have in the pc and the one in the pc is set to master ive changed the plugs the other way tryed different setting but still nothing what am i doing wrong i thought this would be a 2min job which now is going in to the second day i know nothing about pc i mean nothing if there is a write up for dummies how to fit a second hard drive then please point me to it please

DRUE1 · Post by **DRUE1** » Thu Dec 30, 2004 2:50 am

is there any setting i can look on my pc to change thanks

Slaugh · Post by **Slaugh** » Thu Dec 30, 2004 3:09 am

Well, in order for a new HDD to work, you must

1) Make sure the IDE cable is plugged in the right position (pin 1=red strip)
2) Make sure the power cable is plugged as well
3) Make sure the jumper on the HDD is at the right position (if you only have one HDD plugged to the IDE cable, make sure your HDD is set to master and not slave. If you already have a HDD plugged to the same cable, and add a new one, the new HDD must be set as slave (for Seagates, no jumper=slave)
4) After doublechecking everything, boot your system and go to the BIOS (usually by hitting "DEL" key at startup)... There, you should see a place allowing you to detect the IDE devices. Can't tell you exactly what you'll see, it changes from BIOS to BIOS.

Once the HDD is detected, you will be able to partition and format it (otherwise it will be unaccessible). Try these steps first and let us know if your BIOS detect the HDD or not...

Perhaps it would be easier if you could give us more details about your system and your hardware!

peteamer · Post by **peteamer** » Thu Dec 30, 2004 4:00 am

DRUE1, are you aware that the master Hard Drive needs to be at the far end of the ribbon cable... as in:

Motherboard----------------------------------Slave HD---------Master HD

I think you said you changed these positions... but just to make sure.

(Can someone confirm I've got that the right way round please, now I look at it.....)

An alternative is to use the second IDE cable for the slave HD. Though not ideal, it'll prove things just in case your hard drives can't live on the same cable. (Can happen)

Pete

DRUE1 · Post by **DRUE1** » Sun Jan 02, 2005 6:49 am

Slaugh wrote:Well, in order for a new HDD to work, you must

1) Make sure the IDE cable is plugged in the right position (pin 1=red strip)
2) Make sure the power cable is plugged as well
3) Make sure the jumper on the HDD is at the right position (if you only have one HDD plugged to the IDE cable, make sure your HDD is set to master and not slave. If you already have a HDD plugged to the same cable, and add a new one, the new HDD must be set as slave (for Seagates, no jumper=slave)
4) After doublechecking everything, boot your system and go to the BIOS (usually by hitting "DEL" key at startup)... There, you should see a place allowing you to detect the IDE devices. Can't tell you exactly what you'll see, it changes from BIOS to BIOS.

Once the HDD is detected, you will be able to partition and format it (otherwise it will be unaccessible). Try these steps first and let us know if your BIOS detect the HDD or not...

Perhaps it would be easier if you could give us more details about your system and your hardware!

ok matey thats all done and it now see's the hard drive in the bio setting and thats it what do i do now cheers

peteamer · Post by **peteamer** » Sun Jan 02, 2005 6:56 am

DRUE1, you should find all the answers and stuff you need here: http://www.fdisk.com/fdisk/

http://www.5starsupport.com/tutorial/format.htm may also provide help.

Good luck.

Pete

Slaugh · Post by **Slaugh** » Mon Jan 03, 2005 12:54 am

Directly from the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

Assuming you're using Windows XP:
How to partition and format a hard disk in Windows XP

Assuming you're using Windows 95/98/ME:
How to Use the Fdisk Tool and the Format Tool to Partition or Repartition a Hard Disk

Once (and only once) a hard disk is detected, partitioned and formatted (in FAT32 or NTFS), it can be used as a standard HDD with a drive letter. Having one single partition will give you 40GB for lets say the E: drive (might be something else, it's just an example here). If you create 2 partitions of 50% each, you'll end up with 2 logical drives (for example, one E: of 20GB and one F: of 20GB). For a 40GB, You should use the whole space (so one partition) and format it in FAT32 (if you have 95/98 or ME) or NTFS (if you have 2000 or XP).

After formatting your drive, don't be surprised if you don't see exactly 40GB in Windows. The partition table and the FAT takes a bit of space. Also, the hard disk manufacturers calculates 1MB as 1000 bytes (metric calculation) that gives you misleading sizes. They should use 1024 instead of 1000, so that's why the capacity shown by Windows is lower than that stated by the manufacturers.

DRUE1 · Post by **DRUE1** » Mon Jan 03, 2005 1:34 pm

all sorted now had a mate come over and format the hard drive for me and now its all sorted thanks very much for all your help people