deiviuxs Posted May 21, 2009 Author Share Posted May 21, 2009 So, I guess my best and cheapest way out would be to buy a new sata cd-rom drive..? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SyphonPayne Posted May 21, 2009 Share Posted May 21, 2009 So, I guess my best and cheapest way out would be to buy a new sata cd-rom drive..? Yup. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deiviuxs Posted May 21, 2009 Author Share Posted May 21, 2009 I connected both my hard drive and the cd-rom with the same IDE connector. I booted my PC, but 2nd hard drive didn't show up. When I go to 'My Computer' it only shows one hard drive ( C: ). Why the other hdd doesn't come up? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SyphonPayne Posted May 21, 2009 Share Posted May 21, 2009 Make sure your jumpers are set properly. Set the HDD as master and the DVD drive as slave. Also, in Windows, check the device manager for the HDD, if it is in the device manager, but not in My Computer, then there are one or two things you need to do: 1.) Make sure the drive is formatted for windows. 2.) Make sure you assigned a drive letter, which can be done by right-clicking My Computer, click manage, click Disk Management, it should be under "Disk 1", right-click the drive partition, click "Assign Drive letter and paths" and assign a drive letter. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deiviuxs Posted May 21, 2009 Author Share Posted May 21, 2009 My hdd always was a slave disk, because it's a backup/data hdd. However, I do not have the pin for my hdd. I might lost it. Also, if I set hdd to master and cd-rom to slave, I can't connect them with IDE cable correctly, because the top pin of the cable connects to master, bottom pin - slave and in my system cd-rom is above hdd and IDE connector is not long/flexible enough ro connect them both like that. The hdd is full with information and the last thing I wanna do is to reformat the disc... P.S. the hdd does not appear in 'Device Manager' Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SyphonPayne Posted May 21, 2009 Share Posted May 21, 2009 (edited) No no, I was not telling you to reformat if it's already formatted. Plus, if it's not even being detected you can't format it anyway. Is the disk spinning up? Checked all cables? As for the master/slave deal, it does not matter which connector you use on the IDE cable with two drives, the jumper is what determines whether or not it is a master or a slave drive. The only time that matters, is when you are only using a single drive, in which case it is best to have the single master drive on the end connector, in order to reduce noise (data noise, not sound). Even in that case, it would still work if you were to put that master single drive on the middle connector. What brand is the HDD, and DVD drive? The DVD drive does work though? Checked the BIOS to see if it is detected there? Edited May 21, 2009 by SyphonPayne Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deiviuxs Posted May 21, 2009 Author Share Posted May 21, 2009 I checked all the cables and it looks ok. It's hard to tell if the drive is spinning, because I have two hard drive next to each other. The hdd is Seagate Ultra ATA/100. I do not know where I put the jumper, but the hdd itself does not need a jumper if it's a slave drive. The DVD drive is LITE-ON 20X DVD+R (link). The DVD drive is working perfectly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SyphonPayne Posted May 21, 2009 Share Posted May 21, 2009 (edited) Hmm. I'm running out of ideas here. Maybe read this page and see if it helps? My guess is if the drive is getting power and spinning up, it's a jumper issue. Did you check the BIOS to see if it's detected? Maybe check the DVD drive jumper, or if worst comes to worst try the HDD without the DVD Drive hooked up. Edited May 21, 2009 by SyphonPayne Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deiviuxs Posted May 21, 2009 Author Share Posted May 21, 2009 If I remember correctly, the drive was not detected in the BIOS.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SyphonPayne Posted May 21, 2009 Share Posted May 21, 2009 This article may be of use. I know it says "upgrading" but it has a good bit of general information about IDE configuration. Very old article, but still useful. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deiviuxs Posted May 21, 2009 Author Share Posted May 21, 2009 After I carefully inspected the hdd I found that one of the pins was bent a little. I fixed that and know the hdd works fine. However, there is a small issue. My hdd used to had 'D:' assigned. Now, it has 'G:' because 'D:' was used by CD-ROM. I changed CD-ROM letter to 'W:' in 'Disk Management' but when I tried to change hdd letter I got an error message. How can I change my drive letter to 'D:'? CLICK HERE FOR SCREENSHOT Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SyphonPayne Posted May 21, 2009 Share Posted May 21, 2009 Well that will be complicated. First off what operating system(s) are you running? It looks like 1.) You have two active partitions, not really a problem though, but odd. 2.) Your secondary drive is marked as a system partition therefore your computer is actually looking at the MBR on your second drive before it goes on to your boot drive which is your first one which either has a bootloader or if you only use one OS then it just boots that one OS. The only way I can think of in your scenario to fix your drive letter issue is to use the Recovery Console on your XP/Vista disc and use FIXBOOT and/or FIXMBR to make your first hard drive the system partition. After that Windows will let you change the drive letter on the second drive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deiviuxs Posted May 21, 2009 Author Share Posted May 21, 2009 I am using Windows Vista (I think I mentioned that before). The ( C: ) is the only drive that has OS on and the other drive is my storage drive only (pics, music, etc.), it also has some software installed. The drive letter is not that big of a deal, but it would be great if I cold change it to ( G: ) since some of my games and software is not working since the drives uses new letetr now. Also, I do not want to format or re-install anything on either drives. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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