Windows XP Home will not reconize my older EIDE drive as a slave.

  • Thread starter Thread starter Dick
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Dick

I have a Dell Deminsion 4600 w P4 2.66 and half gig memory and a large
harddrive. I need to hook up an older Western digital EIDE harddrive
( WD Caviar 172AA) to acces some data. The jumpers are set according
to the WD site. XP will not recognize the drive and I cant get the
bios to recognize the drive (the drive works). Crappola. Any help
would be appriciated.
 
Dick said:
I have a Dell Deminsion 4600 w P4 2.66 and half gig memory and a large
harddrive. I need to hook up an older Western digital EIDE harddrive
( WD Caviar 172AA) to acces some data. The jumpers are set according
to the WD site. XP will not recognize the drive and I cant get the
bios to recognize the drive (the drive works). Crappola. Any help
would be appriciated.
Click to expand...

IIRC, Dells use cable select. Set your slave drive to cable select and
make sure it is on the slave connector on the IDE ribbon cable (if you
haven't done so already).

Malke
 
Dick said:
I have a Dell Deminsion 4600 w P4 2.66 and half gig memory and a large
harddrive. I need to hook up an older Western digital EIDE harddrive
( WD Caviar 172AA) to acces some data. The jumpers are set according
to the WD site. XP will not recognize the drive and I cant get the
bios to recognize the drive (the drive works). Crappola. Any help
would be appriciated.
Click to expand...

If neither the bios or Windows sees the drive, what tells you that the drive
works?

Normally a computer will see an older drive just fine (well, within limits;
MFM isn't going to work) so age isn't the issue here. A few things you might
try:

Set the jumper for *single* (not master) and use the drive as the only
device on the secondary IDE. Since this is a temporary situation, it's not
going to hurt to unplug your CD or whatever else you have as the secondary
for a short time.

Use a different cable, if you haven't tried that already.

Triple-check the jumpers. I've known people to read the schematic
upside-down.

Download WD's diagnostic software and run it. You boot from a floppy, so it
doesn't matter that the OS doesn't see it.

Make sure your bios is set to AUTO for wherever the drive is located, and
not "none." If you bios allows it, you might try entering the drive's
setting manually.

Try the drive in another computer.

Have you (or someone else) installed ez-bios on that drive? It can mess
things up, but the bios should still be seeing it. However, it's worth
looking at. You should be able to remove ez-bios from the drive while you're
in WD diagnostic utility. It shows some dire warnings before you allow the
removal, but at this point, you don't have much to lose.

You can try some data recovery software. Some of the ones I use will see a
drive even if the OS or bios doesn't. Chance for data recovery is less
though, because if the bios isn't seeing it, it usually indicates some
serious issues.

If none of that works, and the bios still isn't seeing the drive, the last
solution may be a data recovery company.
 
IIRC, Dells use cable select. Set your slave drive to cable select and
make sure it is on the slave connector on the IDE ribbon cable (if you
haven't done so already).

Malke
Click to expand...

Cant set the slave on the same cable. It is EIDE and the master is
ATA -- diferent cable. I have the EIDE on a ribbon cable in the
second slot on the MB (first is the two DVD/CDs). I repeat -
crappola.
 
How old is the drive? It may not be able to provide enough information to
the BIOS for the BIOS to
autodetect it. Some early EIDE drives used a psuedo CHS (cylinder, head,
sector) presentation to the BIOS
but still required the BIOS to know what that was. If you have the old
computer setup information available that
might be the place to look. Also go to the drive makes web set and look at
specifications for setup there.

Some drives have different jumper settings for master, master with slave,
slave, and cable select. If you have it
set to master with slave and no slave is present it may not work.
 
Mike, thanks for the response. The problem seems to be coming down to
the Dell/XP setup wants cable select but the new (late 2003) ultra is
a "round" cable and the (2000) western digital is a ribbon cable. I
cant set that up so I connected the ribbon cable to the second MB
connector and I get nothing. Capitol Crappola.
 
The round cable is just a ribbon cable sliced up and enclosed in a round
rubber hose or whatever. Unless of course you're talking about SATA which is
a whole different thing. If the connector on the end is the same, it should
work, if that old drive is good and is set up properly.

Have you checked the bios to make sure the 2nd ide is actually turned on and
set to Auto instead of None?
 
The round cable is just a ribbon cable sliced up and enclosed in a round
rubber hose or whatever. Unless of course you're talking about SATA which is
a whole different thing. If the connector on the end is the same, it should
work, if that old drive is good and is set up properly.
Its an SATA, the old one works
Have you checked the bios to make sure the 2nd ide is actually turned on and
set to Auto instead of None? yep
Thanks
Click to expand...
 
ooops
Ah, I must have missed the post where you said you gold the old drive
working. So, out of curiosity, what was the solution?
Click to expand...
no solution -- I just know it works in another computer.
 
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