Problem with a new internal HD

roger2016roger2016
edited March 2005 in Hardware
I just bought a new Maxtor 120GB internal HD (was originally looking for an external hd so I would have to deal with something like this) and when I opened up my computer (Dell dimension 4550 :wtf: ) I figured out that I have a place to put the HD, just no IDE to hook it up to. So my friend said I should just take out the floppy and put it in, but the floppy's IDE is smaller so thats a no go. SOO.. I figure why not, I dont use CD's that much.. I guess I'll just replace it with the CD Drive for now, yet that still doesnt work.. (Could it be because the CD's IDE hookup with the motherboard was white and not black?) So I'm kind of lost here on what to do. Should I just buy an external case for the internal hd? or is there a way to get it working at a lower cost? I could get a nice case for about <$25 (On ebay) and if you have any suggestions on what case I should get, in case I need one, that'd be great.

Thanks for the help

Comments

  • profdlpprofdlp The Holy City Of Westlake, Ohio
    edited February 2005
    You hard drives and cdrom drives run off a 40-pin IDE Controller. The Floppy Drive runs off a 34-pin floppy controller. There is no mixing and matching of the two.

    The reason your hard drive doesn't work in place of the cdrom is likely because of either a jumper problem or bios incompatibility.

    Two drives can run off one IDE channel, but they must be set as either Master and Slave (one each) or Cable Select (both).

    It could also be that your MB bios just plain won't recognize the drive. a bios update might solve that problem, but I would try checking the jumpers first.

    The simplest way to be able to use all your drives is to add a PCI IDE controller card. Depending on the model it would allow you to add either two or four more drives while leaving all your existing drives hooked up just as they are now. this assumes you have a free PCI slot on the MB. (It will be one of the short white slots.)

    Something like this card would allow you to add up to four more drives and costs under $16. :)
  • TexTex Dallas/Ft. Worth
    edited February 2005
    You just do not have the jumpers on the HD set right.

    What exactly happens when you plug it in. Be glad to walk you though it andget ya going.

    Does your current hd have a ata100 cable? Does it look differant then the cdrom cable? It should have the same connector but the cable should have twice the number of wires. They should look like finer more dense wires in the same connector if that makes sense.

    If it has two connectors on the current HD cable post back and I'll show ya how to set the jumpers on the maxtor!

    tex
  • roger2016roger2016
    edited February 2005
    Well on the new HD, it says No Jumper = DS (slave). So I left it out because I want it to be slave. Well the problem is when I start it up with the cdrom drive unhooked and the new hd in, it says something about not being able to find the secondary drive (at the time I didnt have the floppy in, so there was only 1 secondary drive) I tried to set it so it would auto detect new drives, but still nothing.

    As for the cables. The cd rom cable is about 1 mm wider than my current hd's cable. but then again, it's 1 mm and I probably measured wrong. Other than that, the cables all feel about the same (cd rom and both HD's). By another set of connecters on the current HD, do you mean another set the "holes" (for lack of a better word) such as on the end of the wire? if so, then yes..
  • profdlpprofdlp The Holy City Of Westlake, Ohio
    edited February 2005
    If your new HD came with a cable use it. Older drives used a 40-wire cable; newer drives sometimes require an 80-wire cable. Both connect to a 40-pin socket. (The extra 40 wires are there to provide an individual ground for the other 40.)

    Make sure the master drive is at the end of the cable and the Slave is hooked to the middle connector.

    What is the date of your bios? If it's quite old it may be that the bios wont see a drive beyond a certain size.
  • roger2016roger2016
    edited February 2005
    Yeah, I've been using the cable that came with the HD. As for the age of the BIOS, it says it's a "Pheonix Rom BIOS 1.10 A02"

    I've thought of hooking the new hd to the middle connector of the older hd, but they're both on the recieving end of the "plugs" (for lack of a better word) What I mean is both the middle connector and the middle connector of the older hd cable both have "holes" on them. maybe there's some kind of conversion part?
  • profdlpprofdlp The Holy City Of Westlake, Ohio
    edited February 2005
    roger2016 wrote:
    ...As for the age of the BIOS, it says it's a "Pheonix Rom BIOS 1.10 A02"...
    We may be on to something. The most recent BIOS I found is the A06 - substantially newer than your A02.
    The following changes have been made to the A05 to create A06:

    1. Fixed IDE cable type detection problem which may cause IDE drive failures.

    2...
    I didn't check to see what changes were made in A03 and A04, but this looks promising.

    I would recommend that you try flashing to the latest BIOS. Be Careful! Follow the instructions to the letter (make sure you print them out before you start). Flashing a BIOS is not hard, but you generally only get one chance to do it right. :)
    I've thought of hooking the new hd to the middle connector of the older hd, but they're both on the recieving end of the "plugs" (for lack of a better word) What I mean is both the middle connector and the middle connector of the older hd cable both have "holes" on them. maybe there's some kind of conversion part?
    Could you elaborate on this? Not all of the pins/wires are used for every drive. Sometimes they plug one of the holes to keep you from inadvertently connecting the cables backwards. You are hooking the side of the cable with the stripe so that is is nearest the power connector on the drive, right?
  • roger2016roger2016
    edited February 2005
    So, I found this link on how to flash a BIOS: http://www.tyan.com/support/html/how_to_flash.html

    What I meant was the old HD wire (like all the other wires I see) has a a set of holes identical to the holes on the end of the same wire. What I was thinkin was that if I could hook the end of the wire that came with the new HD to the set of holes on the middle of the old HD wire and maybe both the HD's would go through 1 wire into the motherboard.


    btw, if I was to flash my bios, I would need a bootdisk right? I don't have one. Yeah, I probably misplaced it.
  • TexTex Dallas/Ft. Worth
    edited February 2005
    Don't flash the bios it has nothing to do with the problem.

    You need both HD's on the same cable as you said it has two connectors. make sure the new one has the jumpers on the back set to CS or "cable select".

    You do not need a new controller or anything but a cable with TWO connectors preferably a ata100 compatible cable.

    tex
  • profdlpprofdlp The Holy City Of Westlake, Ohio
    edited February 2005
    Tex wrote:
    Don't flash the bios it has nothing to do with the problem...
    It does if his current bios won't recognize a 120GB drive. :cool:
  • TexTex Dallas/Ft. Worth
    edited February 2005
    The drive would still be recognized and thats his problem right now. Until it SEE'S the drive don't get folks flashing the bios with no idea as to what the consequenses are if it fails is my theory.

    The chance of things going wrong on a flash are waaaasaay higher if you have no idea what your doing. He doesnt know where his boot disk is... lets just not go there untill we need to.

    Tex
  • roger2016roger2016
    edited February 2005
    Once I pick up one of those two connecters, i'll post if it works or not

    Thanks
  • djvgadjvga
    edited March 2005
    Hi, This 40-pin cable you can use but I will recommen you:

    Temporary: Use the cable you have, look on the upside of the HDD, there must be a diagram with the jumper settings shown and/or explained. Set your HDD to be MASTER!
    Now go to your BIOS and enable the IDE chanels (options like "Primary IDE..." and "Secondary IDE...", set them to Enabled. If there are in your Bios options under each of the above looking like "...IDE cable" or "...ATA Cable", set them to AUTO (if there is no AUTO as an option, choose "ATA100" or "ATA66/ATA100", not "ATA133" or "ATA100/ATA133". Now you could have in your Bios in the main screen option called "IDE Autodetect" or "IDE HDD Autodetection", press enter on it and if the HDD is not faulty it will be detected, save & exit bios. If there is not such option, again on the main Bios screen choose the option called "Standard Bios Features" or "Standard CMOS Setup" located up-left on the screen. You should see "Primary Master:", "Primary Slave:", "Secondary Master:" & "Secondary Slave:", set them all to Auto, save & exit the Bios, the HDD should be detected and runing now.

    http://www.poy.net/proxy/bios1.jpg

    Here is what I recommend: Onece you have your PC working with the new HDD and with no CD, you need to get one more cable!

    This 40-pin cable you have is the slower one for IDE HDD's - ATA66/ATA100 depending on your drive's & motherboard's ATA. I recommend you to get 80-pin ATA100/ATA133 cable. When you get the cable, you only need to get the 40-pin cable out of the HDD and to put it into the CD (Be sure that the CD jumper is set to SLAVE (There is diagram on the upper side of the cd at the back or on the back panel)). The new 80-pin cable you will plug into the HDD, and the other end into the socket next to this where the 40-pin cable goes in on the motherboard. That's all. :)

    Important: If your motherboard and/or HDD supports maximum ATA100, than you can use second 40-pin cable without loosing speed.

    The best speed is reached on IDE interface when the motherboard is supporting ATA133 & The HDD is 7200 rpm, ATA133 & with 8 MB cache.
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