2nd hard drive recognized but won't boot

[babs2575]

First time I'm trying this forum. Hope you all can help. I'm trying to install a 2nd (new 20gb) hard drive into a system. I want to copy all of the old hard drive to the new. Problem is I can get the system to recognize the 2nd hard drive when I install it as a slave but it won't boot past that. It finds the original hard drive, then the new hard drive then it hangs. I can take out the new hard drive and the system will boot into windows just fine. Any quick suggestions? Thanks!

[classicsoftware]

First- check the jumpers.

Where does it hang????

After the Bios? While loading the OS? Please be more specific.

Do you have an 80 wire cable?

Please post back with system specs...

[babs2575]

Jumpers are ok. hangs in bios. says pri master detected and gives hard drive info (old drive) then pri slave detected and gives hard drive info then it hangs there.

[ranchdog]

In CMOS (BIOS) how do you

have your boot-up sequence set?


RD.

[classicsoftware]

You still need to post system specs

P-II, P-III, P4??? etc.

It may be that you have an older system and need an 80 wire cable?

You might have to make the new drive the master on the secondary channel as a temporary measure to get it to boot.

This is usually a cable or jumper issue. It also may be bios issue and you would have to flash the bios.

More info still required.

[babs2575]

boot sequence doesn't have anything to do with the problem. jumpers are set as they should be. 80 wire cable and 40 pin are the same thing, correct? if so, that's what i'm using. it is an older system and i thought maybe i could get around having to flash bios since the bios does actually detect the new drive. i don't really have a lot of time to spend on this, i just thought maybe you all would have some shortcuts i could try.

[mjc]

Are all the IDE channels set to "auto detect" in BIOS?

Are the jumpers on the drives set for the positions you want the drive to be in (old drive master, etc), not cable select, also make that the master is on the end of the cable and slaves are on the middle connector...

[classicsoftware]

All cables are 40 pin....

The newer drives require an 80 wire cable... They gave a blue and grey connectors where the drives plug in. If you just haver black connectors and a newer UDMA drive, you will need the 80 wire connector or you can have the trouble you experienced....

[Paleo Pete]

1. You still need to post some system specs. Knowing it's an older machine it could well be that your BIOS will not support the 20GB drive, at least not without a BIOS update.

2. 80 wire cables are used with newer ATA 100 drives, but the motherboard must support that protocol before the cable will make a difference. Many older systems will not even boot with an 80 wire cable, if the chipset originally only supported EIDE drives and 40 wire cables, I've seen several that will not boot at all...no video.

If the motherboard/chipset will detect the 20GB drive but does not support ATA 100 you can use a standard 40 wire cable, the drive will still work fine as long as the BIOS can support the drive size, but will not get the performance advantages of ATA 100. The 80 wire cable is not absolutely required, except for ATA 100 functionality.

3. I doubt if any "shortcuts" will be available for this one, we'll need specific system specs, BIOS version might help a lot, and if you casn identify the motherboard itself that would be best. That will tell us whether it will support the 20GB drive as is, or if you might have to get a BIOS update first.

Finally, if you want to copy all your existing data to the 20GB drive and use it as your primary drive, with OS installed, your best bet would be to install it as master, (jumpers and cable position), then run the drive manufacturer's installaiton software, which usually has an option to transfer all data to the new drive, as well as the quickest partitioning/formatting procedure around...check the drive manufacturer's website if installation software did not come with the new drive, usually on a floppy disk.

[babs2575]

Here's where I'm at....bios is set to auto detect on both. Jumpers set at master and slave not cable select. I did plan on copying all the old to the new with software I have but kind of got stopped doing that when the system would only go so far on the booting.
I did go to the manufacturer's site and download a program that is suppose to help install even with problems like these so soon as I get a chance to try that, we'll see what happens. Sorry I haven't sent specs but sometimes with the kind of days that I have, I don't have a chance to make it back to that computer to get the info. In fact, I haven't even looked at it since the first day that I posted. Bear with me, I'll get you the info you are requesting. Thanks for the help!!

[Sylvander]

Would the PC proceed to boot from the old drive (still jumpered as Primary Master [C:]) even if the new drive was not partitioned and formatted? Or would it halt? It would detect the hardware but but be unable to detect any partition[s] & would be unable to allocate any logical drive letter[s] to it/them.
Was this [second] drive supplied ready partitioned or not? I know mine was and it all went very smoothly.