Hard drive Instalation problems

[exatreide]

Well I got a hard drive, a 20 gig one with no disc ect from a friend to put on my comp, since i need the space.

I am running windows 98, it didnt detect the hard drive when i put it in, and i dont know how to install it manully, how do I?

I went to decet new hard where and It didnt, and i clicked next and the list came up, but i dont know which one to click and what to do...

[gryphon]

With a lot of bad luck it won't have a partition on it. When you open [ doubel click ] on this computer on your desktop. Is there a new drive letter among the list [ A: C: D: etc ] or just the same as there have been before you placed the disk in ?

[Gobalopper]

Does your BIOS detect it?

[Nyarlathotep]

Does your BIOS detect it?

Ex, that question from Gob is very important. Apart from that, check if the Matser - Slave setting is correct. It's set via jumpers on the hardrive. If you need to know how it kinda looks like, check out "back of cdrom" pic in how to buld your own comp thread. On the harddrive should be described how to set that jumper.

[exatreide]

BIOS? whats that?

And no it dosnt register when i click new computer,

does it need to be in slave or master?

and whats up with that anyway?

[Gobalopper]

It would depend, are the hard drives on the same IDE cable?

[number6]

Well most motherboards have an IDE controller onboard with 2 connectors. One is the primary and the other is the secondary IDE controller. Each controller can support 2 devices which allows you to hook up 4 IDE devices. Each controller has a master and a slave. These master/slave settings are usually set by jumpers on the back of the device (ie the hard drive or CDROM drive). The manual for your IDE device should have diagrams that specify the jumper settings. If you don't have the manuals you can easily download them from the vendor. The point is you can only have one master and one slave per IDE controller. So look at the IDE ribbon cable connecting your disks and see if 2 are on the same cable. If so check the jumper settings on each device to make sure that one is master and one is slave. If both are master (most likely case) make one of them a slave. Most hard disks are set to be master by default and if you put your new drive on the same cable as the old one that would cause a conflict.

How old is your computer? Is it older than 1999? If so your BIOS may not support disks bigger than 8.4 GB. This can be fixed by the hard disk vendor specific BIOS that can be installed or flashing your current BIOS to a newer revision.

[gryphon]

Your BIOS is the little screen you see right after you boot up your PC. An energy star logo at the right top, lift top displays your memory amount and type of processor, just below it you can see the listing of any hard drives and CD-rom [ DVD's, burners things like that ].

The new hard drive should be on that list. [ if your BIOS is on auto detect ]

[exatreide]

They are on the same Cable yes, And I dont think thats a prob num 6, My first hard drive is 12 gig.

What does the slave, Master switch look like? I cant identify it on the hard drive. All i have is The thing that goes to the cable, the power cord and this little white sqaure thats between the two. is that it?

[number6]

On the back of the hard drive there will be a series of pins with a couple of them connected by a jumper. A jumper looks like a little plastic cap that is used to complete a circuit. The pins on the back of the hard drive are not connected unless a jumper is placed on them. Here is an example of jumper settings for a Western Digital Hard drive:

http://support.wdc.com/techinfo/general/jumpers.asp

Take a look at the diagram on that page. Dual means you have 2 disks on the cable which is what you have. Now if you had a Western Digital disk you could use the link above to set the jumper on your hard drive. What brands are your disks?

[Navaros]

ExAtreides,

even if your BIOS is recognizing the hard drive that is NOT the same thing as having your OS recognize it. i recently had to install a new hard drive and the first thing to do it set your master/slave jumper settings correctly and make sure the right end of the IDE cable is plugged into the slave drive (the physical connectors of the IDE cable my LOOK identical at first glance, but the fact is, they are NOT - the one is designated for the Slave and one is designated for the Master and they MUST be plugged into your hard drives in the right order). once you have done all this correctly, your BIOS should be recognizing all your hard drives but this certainly does NOT mean your OS recognizes all your drives

to get Windows to recognize your new hard drive, you will need special software designed to get Windows to recognize the new drive. fortunately, this software has probably already came on a CDROM with your hard drive and it's just a matter of running the Install program. if not, you'll have to get software of this kind elsewhere

btw once you have installed the new drive, none of your software may work due to all the drive letter changes that occur :( i learned this the hard way. for this reason, i recommend that you never have two hard drives in the same computer system which both boot to the same common OS. otherwise, you're gonna have a nightmare on your hands in relation to Drive-Letter-related functionality problems.

[number6]

The only time you need to worry about cable placement is if you have jumpered the disk to be cable select and your BIOS supports that feature.

[number6]

btw once you have installed the new drive, none of your software may work due to all the drive letter changes that occur i learned this the hard way. for this reason, i recommend that you never have two hard drives in the same computer system which both boot to the same common OS. otherwise, you're gonna have a nightmare on your hands in relation to Drive-Letter-related functionaltiy problems.

This can be a problem if you don't plan ahead for adding new disks. The problem usually stems from setting your CDROM drive to the letter D: and installing all of your software at that setting. What you should do before installing anything from the CDROM drive is set it to a letter way down the alphabet like Z:. That way when you add a new hard drive it will take the letter D: by default and not be a problem for you.

[Navaros]

btw once you have installed the new drive, none of your software may work due to all the drive letter changes that occur i learned this the hard way. for this reason, i recommend that you never have two hard drives in the same computer system which both boot to the same common OS. otherwise, you're gonna have a nightmare on your hands in relation to Drive-Letter-related functionaltiy problems.

This can be a problem if you don't plan ahead for adding new disks. The problem usually stems from setting your CDROM drive to the letter D: and installing all of your software at that setting. What you should do before installing anything from the CDROM drive is set it to a letter way down the alphabet like Z:. That way when you add a new hard drive it will take the letter D: by default and not be a problem for you.

great advice for someone installing a new OS. but once the problem has already occurred, you're pretty much screwed. i have about 736 Drive-Letter-Related Registry Problems right now as a result of this issue and Norton Utilities tells me there is no way I should ever try to let it fix them (unless I wanna have a Total System Meltdown or something equivalent). i certainly am not going to forsake my data to correct these problems and don't know of any possible way to correct them and keep all my data intact.

btw Ex sorry for taking this slightly offtopic but at least by me doing so you get to see the horrors involved if you accidentally make the same mistake that I did.

[number6]

Well no one said adding a hard drive was a trivial affair.

[exatreide]

ok

here is where I am at so far.

I put the little red tab on the new hard drive to slave(second from right its a 10 pin) and turned it on.

only to get a no boot disc dected and i went :O, but i checked them and it turns out I never plugged the hard drives back in lol. But after plugging them in. I turn it on and I still get no dectection of the new hard drive. there is no pin thing for my old hard drive, I have a few extra some where, Should I put these on it as duel master?(Its 8 pin I think)

[number6]

Do you mean you don't have any jumpers on the old HD? I am guessing that no jumper means single boot which would explain the problems you are having (you want dual boot with a master and slave disk). If so you can use any jumpers that are not being used from the other disk and make the old disk a master. Jumpers that are not in use will only be connected to one pin instead of 2. When only one pin is connected there is no circuit being completed. If you have a few extra somewhere you can use one of them as well. They are interchangeable between different hardware. You just want to make sure you don't remove one that is already in use.

[exatreide]

ok so basicly you are saying leave the new hard drive on slave, and put all the extras i have on the old hard drive right?

[Navaros]

Well no one said adding a hard drive was a trivial affair.

it was with DOS. MicroSoft insisted on switching to a ludicrously-stupid "Registry" system that screws EVERYTHING up! Life was paradise before Registry-based OS'es were forced upon the Universe by the evil MicroSoft. MicroSoft should have made it more clear to end-users that the Registry is such a pain in the rear as it relates to installing/removing drives because I certainly was given no reasonable warning about such things before my system got permanently screwed-over.

[number6]

[quote author=ExAtreides

[exatreide]

alright will give it a shot

[number6]

Well no one said adding a hard drive was a trivial affair.

it was with DOS. MicroSoft insisted on switching to a ludicrously-stupid "Registry" system that screws EVERYTHING up! Life was paradise before Registry-based OS'es were forced upon the Universe by the evil MicroSoft. MicroSoft should have made it more clear to end-users that the Registry is such a pain in the rear as it relates to installing/removing drives because I certainly was given no reasonable warning about such things before my system got permanently screwed-over.

I hear you. You are right that the problems are with the OS and not the hardware. Unfortunately all the current games are made for the Windows platform or I would totally abandon Microsoft on my home systems. MSDOS is a little outdated nowadays though I admit I keep a few old systems around to play DOS games properly. I am leaning more towards Linux nowadays. It reminds me of the old DOS days where I had complete control of my system.

[number6]

[quote author=ExAtreides

[exatreide]

YES YES YES YES!!!!!!!!

Ok I did what you said, and still got nothing. I went on a hunch though and re started it and enterd the set up by pressing deleate.

then i went into the hard drive menu of that. and I put the slave thing on auto decet, re booted and got the confirmation thing

Masterd hard drive thingy dected

Slave Hard drive thingy dected

So I got that in!

but i went to my computer and there is no new letter there. What do I do to install it now?

[exatreide]

Alright i checked it out in the systems thing of the control panal, switched it to removable drive and rebooted, it dected it right away i went through formatting it.

So its in! yay yay yay yay yay

Ok How Do i switch files to the new hard drive? I want to put all my music files on the new hard drive. Do I just do copy and paste? what about my games?