primary ide connection no conductor 80 cable installed

[mgp77]

Hello,

I'm trying to add a second HD to my Windows XP Professional system but when I boot into windows after connecting the drive I can't see it in Windows Explorer. I tried going into the add hardware wizard but Windows is unable to detect any new hardware devices added to the machine. I used to have a second harddrive connected before but it suddennly stopped working meaning that I could see it in Windows Explorer but I couldn't save anything onto it. I'm getting this message when booting up my PC

primary ide connection no conductor 80 cable installed

Can anyone help me with this troblem. All help is greatly appreciated. The second HD I'm trying ot install is a 40 GB Maxtor drive.

Thanks

 

[cdogg]

First of all, does the IDE cable have 40 or 80 wires? Usually, you'll see a 40-wire cable on the Secondary IDE channel, where optical drives (CD/DVD-ROMs) are typically placed. Today's hard drives, however, need to be placed on an 80-wire cable for optimum performance. They'll still work on 40-wire ones, but restricted to ATA/33 speeds. Hence the "warning" you are seeing.

I suggest you unplug the 2nd hard drive from the IDE cable, and see if the error goes away. Assuming it does, I would check the jumper setting on the new hard drive, make sure it is set to SLAVE, and attach it to the same cable as your primary hard drive.

If any of that is unclear to you, I suggest you search the terms online for more information.

By the way, you don't have to use the "add new hardware" wizard to add IDE devices, such as hard drives and CD/DVD-ROMs. These devices are detected by the BIOS and detected automatically in Windows 95 and later.

~cdogg
"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Albert Einstein
[tab][navy]For general rules and guidelines to get better answers, click here:[/navy] faq219-2884

 

[rvnguy]

Ditto cdogg's post, I only offer a bit of guidance:

I can't see it in Windows Explore

If this new drive is not formatted it will not appear in explorer.

Information for setting up the drive and utils to assist are available on most all drive mfg's sites. Determine who made this drive and download their utils.

An 80 conductor cable(still has 40 pin connector) is about $4US. If the old drive is slower than new one and you place on th same IDE cable both will operate at the lowest common denominator.

rvnguy
"I know everything..I just can't remember it all

 

[wolluf]

If this is a new unpartitioned drive, then you'll need to run disk management (run diskmgmt.msc) first to partition & format it (and assign it a drive letter - it won't appear in explorer without one). If its already partitioned, it might need a drive letter adding (sometimes happens that it loses one compleltely when put in new machine) - also can be done in disk management.