Win98 works fine but BIOS can't recognize HD

[LichenP]

Greetings,
I have a Celeron 400MHz on AL440LX motherboard w/ the latest (P14) BIOS running Win98. I have 2 HD. One faster one (30GB, 7200rpm) as primary master and the other slower one (6.4GB) as secondary slave. Everything is working fine (no 'x', '!' or '?' under device properties), windows explorer sees both drives, and I can move/copy/delete/defrag. etc on both drives. All except that the BIOS does not show the secondary slave drive. Changed/ edited the BIOS setting for that (i.e auto, user,...), after saved and exited the BIOS, when I come back to check it, still not recognized.
What's going on and how do I fix this?
TX in advance

[Reid]

While I don't think it would affect drive detection, it is generally recommended to put the second drive in as the Primary Slave (same cable as the C: drive), and run the CD ROM on the Secondary cable.

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reido@my-deja.com

[LichenP]

http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/frown.gif My (faulty?) logic is that I don't want my slow HD to drag down my faster HD. That's why I put it w/ the CDROM drive. I intend to use the slow one just as an image for a working partition on the faster one. That's where it becomes a problem b/c my Power Quest's DriveImage doesn't show that secondary HD.

[Reid]

I have not heard of a slow hard drive affecting the performance of a faster one. I was not able to find if that board support UDMA. That would degrade the potential performance of the new drive, which I assume may be an UDMA/66.

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reido@my-deja.com

[Reid]

Here is some info I just found:

(From Western Digital FAQ)
Can a hard drive and a CD-ROM be installed on the same EIDE data cable ? If so, will this arrangement degrade the performance of the hard drive in any way?

An EIDE hard drive and an EIDE CD-ROM can be connected on the same cable. The drive should be jumpered as Master and jumper the CD-ROM as Slave. Installing a CD-ROM on the same cable as the hard drive can cause a reduction of performance in the hard drive.
**************


. Does an old HD or CDROM slow down a new drive?

This is not necessarily the case. Still, it is generally preferable to
connect older drives and CD-ROMs to the secondary channel.

If this is not feasible, or if you're wondering if you should upgrade,
a few points.

o The speed loss usually referred to is in the interface timing, i.e.
the speed at which the devices communicate with the computer. This
does not necessarily translate into a real world performance
penalty.

! o This is mostly an issue with older ATA-2 (EIDE) interfaces and some
! VL IDE ones. If you have an ordinary ISA IDE interface, it can't
! get any slower.

! o All modern interfaces support distinct timing for master and slave.
! With these, the slow device does not directly affect the fast one.

! o Many CD-ROMs support at least PIO mode 3. This is enough to operate
! most harddisks on the market today near their maximum speed. http://www.landfield.com/faqs/pc-hardware-faq/enhanced-IDE/part1/


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reido@my-deja.com

[This message has been edited by Reid (edited 12-19-2000).]