Connecting an old hdd as a 2nd/slave drive

BrunoM

I did this once, years ago. I don't really know what I am doing. I have an old hard drive (which does not have a working Windows install, but does have data I want badly) and a newer working PC which has its own hard drive.

Any advice, pointers to helpful guides, or anything?
I have tried opening up the case and attaching the drive to where I thought made sense (the other connectors on the same cable as the existing hdd), both with and without the 'slave' jumper clip on the little pins at the back; I've gone into the BIOS setup and tried to enable primary/secondary master/slave drives to see if it showed up there but it never seemed to.

It may just be that the drive is completely dead, but I think it's more likely I am making a fundamental error somewhere...

superscaper

I know this sounds obvious but when you connected the ribbon/ide cable did you also connect a power cable to it as well?

nickmack

BrunoM wrote: »

It may just be that the drive is completely dead, but I think it's more likely I am making a fundamental error somewhere...

Try the drive on it's own to see if it's detected. Remove the jumper completely and do auto detect in the BIOS if there is one.

You probably know already but make sure the IDE cable is the right way (stripe nearest to power supply).

If it doesn't spin up then it's probably dead.

If it does seem dead, put it in the freezer for a few hours and then put it back in the PC, this sometimes works.

robbino

Hi BrunoM,
What you did sounds correct. You did not mention it, you must set the first HD as master and second as slave. Also plug a power connector into the second drive (you didn't mention you had done this, I'm sure you have )

Does the second HD spin up when you turn on the power, you should hear this although sometimes difficult with fans going.

Some BIOS support auto detect for HD, if yours supports this, this will at least tell you if the BIOS is able to access the drive.

If this is an IDE HD some motherboards have two IDE connectors, maybe worth getting another cable and trying the HD on the second connector (sometimes the CD-ROM will be placed into this connector).

Found this how-to guide:

http://www.ehow.com/how_6030_install-second-hard.html

Hope some of this helps,

Rob

BrunoM

Thanks all - I had connected the power cable yes, but I will try the other suggestions and advice!

joshm_2

You could try using CS (cable select on) the sdrives' jumper settings if the master/slave configuration doesn't work. That way, your original drive (I think!) goes at the connection at the end of the cable, and the new one (slave) at the first one from the motherboard.

Little_John

If your still having problems do this

Don't use CS or cable select, set the 2 drives to master and slave.

connect them up and see what happens, don't bother waiting for the PC to boot in to windows use the bios to see what drives are detected, if you have the jumpers set correctly it will find both drives. If it doesn't switch off, disconnect the one that is working and check the bios again and see what the other drive is being recognised as. switch off then make the necessary changes to that drive and try again without connecting both drives when it pops up as desired then put both drives on and away you go.

Don't leave drive selection up to cable select. its lazy and can cause problems if you ever wipe drives with drive letters changeing arround.