install used hard drive into new system

[Jumby]

I want to install a small used hard drive with data, into a "newly built" system. I'll do a fresh install of Win98 on a 4.3 gig HD which will be the primary drive, and I want to put a 2gig with data into it. The data is coming from a system also with 98 if that matters. So if I put the 4.3 hard drive as master and the small one as slave on same cable, then cd rom as master on on secondary ribbon, will that work and not have problems with data already on the drive?

[Rick]

That setup is correct.
The only problem you may have is If the old drive was the boot drive in the old system.
In that case you should install Both of them at the same time and when you run Fdisk
On the New drive.
You will need to make sure you Mark the New drive as Active.
This will remove the old active flag from the old/small drive.

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To ERR is HUMAN
To REALLY screw things UP, YOU NEED a COMPUTER !

[Jumby]

Ok, I put in the small hard drive as slave on primary cable (with a primary IDE as master), then put the CD rom as master on secondary cable and it didn't recognize CD rom. I changed jumpers, went into bios, and then back again. Can't get it to recognize CD unless it's just hard drive and cd on primary cable. So I know that both hard drives work, and cd rom works --- just not all together. I know this has to be something simple.

[Rick]

You’ve already confirmed that all 3 drives work.
Then you need to get the system to see the cd on the second ide controller.
Start by double checking all your drive settings for the Drives .
Also check in the bios for the ide controller settings,
It should be set to both enabled .
Confirm the cable connections at the mother board and the drive are correct and secure.

If the cd works as slave when combined with the Hdd then there is no reason it shouldn’t work as master or slave on the secondary controller .


------------------
To ERR is HUMAN
To REALLY screw things UP, YOU NEED a COMPUTER !