WAGGGHHHHH!!! BIOS and jumper help

[Dragoonboy_2000]

Okay, I screwed myself over. I had a 36x cdrom drive hooked up on my secondary cable and I unhooked it temporarily. I put in a new cable so I could hook up 2 devices into that slot, and yes, my motherboard supports it. I've tried starting up my PC with the cdrom in both slots, and have failed. I need to know what the BIOS settings would be for a CDplayer to be detected on a computer http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/frown.gif. I also have aother question: Can anyone give me the instructions on how to setup a primary slave drive that already has data on it? I used it on one computer, but now I want to use my current computer to read the data on it. Is this possible? Thanks!

[rond36]

Hello, Dragoonboy_2000 and welcome to The PC Guide Forums

What motherboard does your system have? Where on the IDE cable is your CD-ROM drive if it is on the end connector it needs the jumper on the back of the drive set to master. Almost all motherboards support 2 drives per IDE channel and 2 channels per controller for a total of 4 IDE/ATAPI devices. What other IDE/ATAPI devices are you trying to use? What I get from your post you had your hard drive and CD-ROM drive on the primary IDE channel you want to move the CD to the secondary channel and install a hard drive as slave on the primary channel. Set the jumper on the hard drive to slave and plug it into the center connector on the primary IDE channel. Set the jumper on the CD drive to master plug it into the end connector on the secondary IDE channel. About BIOS setting I don't know what board you have.

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How to Use the Fdisk Tool and the Format Tool to Partition or Repartition a Hard Disk (http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q255867)
How to multi-boot Windows XP (http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/using/howto/gettingstarted/multiboot.asp)
Microsoft Expert Zone Multi-booting made easy (http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone/columns/russel/september10.asp)
MSKB How to multi-boot Windows XP (http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q306559)

[saphalline]

Originally posted by Dragoonboy_2000:
Can anyone give me the instructions on how to setup a primary slave drive that already has data on it? I used it on one computer, but now I want to use my current computer to read the data on it. Is this possible? Thanks!

I love using old hard drives in new computers, the storage arrangements are mind-boggling! http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/biggrin.gif Well, as soon as you can get all your master/slave jumpers and cable connections to work, setting up an older hard drive as a slave should allow you to access the data. Provided, of course, that the file systems are the same (ie no mixing FAT with NTFS).

What I usually like to do is strip the old drive of all its useful data and put it on my main hard drive. Then roboot with a start-up disk and use the fdisk program to reformat the old drive and create a logical partition (not a bootable partition) on it using all the space.

For instance, let's say you manage to get ahold of an old 1.5GB hard drive with Windows 95 on it. Hook it up, transfer all useful files, reformat, partition it, and you have an extra 1.5GB of space to use however you want! The cool thing is that you can transfer, say, an hour of MPEG2 video to the old drive, take it out, put it in a friend's computer and share the love! Because the old drive has no boot partition or OS, it's compatible with any version of Windows that uses its file system (usually FAT32 for Win9x) and is automatically detected and usable by your friend's PC.

Keep in mind, however, that older drives are usually based on older ATAPI protocols, such as ATA/33 or /66 and will slow down your current hard drive if put on the same primary or secondary channel. So if you're currently using a 30GB ATA/100 hard drive as your primary master, hooking up a 2GB ATA/33 hard drive as the primary slave will make both hard drives use ATA/33. Needless to say, this can severely diminish your overall system performance so older drives are best left connected with CD drives and such.

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Windows 95: A 32-bit extension of a 16-bit overlay for an 8-bit OS that was originally designed for a 4-bit processor by a 2-bit company that can't produce 1 bit of good software!

[iisbob]

No need to use an boot floppy to format the secondary drive, just right click it in explorer and choose " format ". works just as good, and saves you ton's o' time! http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/biggrin.gif




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iisbob

Computer-Show me the Enterprise; no bloody A, no bloody B, and no bloody C-just the original...Mr Scott { from a STNG episode }

[Paleo Pete]

Can anyone give me the instructions on how to setup a primary slave drive that already has data on it? I used it on one computer, but now I want to use my current computer to read the data on it. Is this possible? Thanks!

Dragoonboy: DO NOT use any of the repartitioning/formatting instructions above, you will lose the data you want to use...The instructions given are basically correct, but I think they failed to remember that you want to USE the existing data...

Yes, you can do that, how to do it depends on the current setup and types of drives involved. As someone already mentioned, if the older drive is an earlier ATA type it will slow down the existing drive, since the IDE controller works at the speed of the slower drive.

Therefore...if they are both ATA66 for instance, you would need to check the jumper settings for BOTH drives, and make sure the present Primary IDE Master (boot drive) is set correctly to accept a slave drive, then jumper the older drive as Slave. Some have only one setting, Master or Slave, some have multiples...Single, Slave, Dual with slave etc. Then set BIOS to autodetect the Primary Slave drive. Primary Master should already be set. The older drive should be on the middle connector of the ribbon cable, boot drive on the end connector.

If you need to put a slower drive on the Secondary IDE channel, and use the CD ROM also, my choice of setups would be with the hard drive as Master and the CD ROM as Slave. Both should have jumpers, the older drive would be placed on the end connector of the ribbon cable and set as Master, the CD ROM on the middle connector and set as Slave. Set BIOS to autodetect as above.

Once you have the jumper settings and BIOS correct, you should be able to use the older drive with no further tinkering, provided it is a compatible FAT table with the boot drive. FAT16 and FAT32 should work together, although I would much prefer both as FAT32, FAT and NTFS will not work together unless the OS is an NT kernel based one. In that case the boot drive would have to be NTFS.

For the CD ROM problem of not being detected, sometmes BIOS must be set to autodetect, sometimes the proper IDE channel needs to be set to None.That depends on the motherboard, most newer boards work with the CD ROM set to autodetect. If the CD ROM is on the Secondary IDE channel and jumpered as Master, then set BIOS to autodetect the Secondary Master.

I hope all this is clear enough, I'm not sure if I'm really awake yet...

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[Dragoonboy_2000]

All of you are awesome! I finally got this to work, I feel like a moron though, it took me 3 hours just to figure out that the jumpers had some sorta odd cover over them, guess they weren't meant to be tampered with http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/smile.gif

That was the problem with the CDrom, now that I fixed the jumpers...

The Hard disk works great now, both hard disks use FAT32, so Im set http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/smile.gif Thanx again, looks like I'll have to start posting, the 10 gigs was worth it http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/smile.gif http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/smile.gif http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/smile.gif