Second Drive has no letter 1

[microlease]

I have installed a second hard disc drive and also have two CDs a reader and a writer, previously installed.
Now I have sorted out the master/slave/IDE cable puzzle, I have:
Primary Master - 1st hard disk
Primary slave - CD reader
Secondary Master - CD writer
Secondary Slave - 2nd hard disk

BTW, I am running Win 98.
My problem is that although I can see two HDs under Control Panel/System (and under FDisk), my primary hard disk is "C", My reader and writer are "D" and "E" and my second HD has no "Letter", hence I cannot format it! - or can I?

My only thought was to disconnect the CDs in the hope that the 2nd HD would become "D" and I could format it before reconnecting the CDs, but has anyone got a more elegant solution? )

 

[Jakespeare]

>> You write: (and I quote here)

"Now I have sorted out the master/slave/IDE cable puzzle, I have:"

Well, you didn't sort it all out. Not to get on your case,
but you tried to figure this out on your own, and messed it all up.

** IT AIN'T NO PUZZLE,,,,, because 50,000 guys have done this before you, and all know how to do it.
** ALL you had to do was ask, you know ? (or, grab a hardware 101 book).

I'm afraid you wasted all your efforts messing up the puzzle.


First: Hard drives should go together here.
Primary is your Windows Disk.
Slave = HD from your "Slave" drive...... on 2nd PCI channel.

CD-ROMS....... on the Secondary PCI.
> Master could be either,,,,,,, but I recommend the CD-ROM, as master, as that is the one you are most likely to use all the time,,,,,,,,,
If you burn all the time, off of the hard drives, make it the Master.

I could ask about all the ratings of your hardware, the ATA ratings, but I'm not going to. Why confuse the issue.

CD-ROMS do not belong on the PRIMARY PCI channel.

Switch it all around,,,,, making sure, MAKE SURE, that you have the BIOS in your mainboard set to AUTO.
Or, use the DETECT IDE hard drive,,,,,, and make sure it sets up.

LAST: It is possible,,,,,, that the jumper settings on the hard drives are somewhat difficult to figure out........ experiment if you have to, the little diagrams can be confusing ( Quantums')

 

[microlease]

thanks for the pointer. I shall be trying this tonight. The reason I put the CDs on separate ribbons was that I was told that there would be fewer conflicts/ faster write speeds if I did this. Guess I can't have that AND an extra HD, Huh?