3 harddisks 1 cdrom

[lampron]

I have two hard disks (master/slave) and one cdrom (master) in my machine. Can I add another ide hard disk and can I slave it to the cdrom? My primary master is my c: drive - slave is d: and cdrom is e: I have two ide 40 pin slots on motherboard - one used by primary master/slave and second used by cdrom. I need the third disk for additional storage space. Can this be done? and if so how?

[dale]

I just did this. Yes you can have 3 IDE drives and a CD-ROM. But you will likely need to slave the CD ROM to the 3rd IDE Drive and not the other way around. It appears to me, that some BIOSs just don't like having an IDE as a slave to the CDROM for some reason and is unable to autodetect the IDE Drive in this case. I think its because when it probes the second controller master and finds a drive that contains no data (CD ROM), it assumes the secondary must be empty as well. By making the IDE the secondary master, everything is cool.

dale

[lampron]

Originally posted by dale:
I just did this. Yes you can have 3 IDE drives and a CD-ROM. But you will likely need to slave the CD ROM to the 3rd IDE Drive and not the other way around. It appears to me, that some BIOSs just don't like having an IDE as a slave to the CDROM for some reason and is unable to autodetect the IDE Drive in this case. I think its because when it probes the second controller master and finds a drive that contains no data (CD ROM), it assumes the secondary must be empty as well. By making the IDE the secondary master, everything is cool.

Thank you Dale - you answered my question just fine. Now I hope it works http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/smile.gif)

dale

[DANQU]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by dale:
[b]I just did this. Yes you can have 3 IDE drives and a CD-ROM. But you will likely need to slave the CD ROM to the 3rd IDE Drive and not the other way around. It appears to me, that some BIOSs just don't like having an IDE as a slave to the CDROM for some reason and is unable to autodetect the IDE Drive in this case. I think its because when it probes the second controller master and finds a drive that contains no data (CD ROM), it assumes the secondary must be empty as well. By making the IDE the secondary master, everything is cool.

Hi Dale
When you get a chance can please read my problem and see if maybe your answer to lampron
Will be of some help in my situation?

"IBM harddrive not seen in
DOS but seen in Windows 98
Second edition"

Thanks
Dan




[This message has been edited by DANQU (edited 09-05-2000).]