Tech Support Forum - View Single Post - [SOLVED] Probably a stupid question, but...

ascoredhat · 11-11-2007, 07:20 PM

... I'm a stupid kind of guy, so it only seems appropriate.

I've been working for a week to try to solve an issue of getting my old hard drive to work with my new MB and CPU, and where it stands now is when I boot it says Invalid System Disk. When I check out the CMOS, under primary IDE drive it says "not detected". After checking the obvious (are cables plugged in properly and firmly attach? Power cable connected? etc), I'm wondering if I have my jumpers set right. The reason I'm wondering is I currently have 1 Hard drive and 1 DVD-Rom drive on the primary cable (the stupid motherboard doesn't have secondary IDE connector), and I have the Hard drive set up as Master and the DVD-Rom set up as slave, as I figured that's the way it's supposed to be. However, it seems odd to me because I therefore have to have the hard drive on the end of the IDE cable with the slave drive, the DVD-rom drive, on the middle connector, and that makes it a very, very awkward connection inside the computer. Since the HD bay is below the DVD-rom bay, I have to twist it pretty funny to make the connections reach. Logic seems to tell me that the HD should be off the middle connector and then the end connector will reach effortlessly to the DVD-rom drive. If so, do I make the DVD-Rom drive the master and the HD the slave? Do I make the both Cable select? One of them cable select? I never really learned what the heck cable select even means, to be honest.

Perhaps this is why the HD is not being detected at boot up. I know the HD works as when I put it in another computer as a slave, it pops right up in My Computer, so it's being seen.

Any advice on the proper way to hook up the HD and DVD-rom to the cable and what jumper settings to use for each would be appreciated. Also, if it means anything, I have the DVD-Rom drive set up as the first boot device and the HD as second.

Thanks :)

11-11-2007, 07:20 PM	#1 (permalink)
ascoredhat Registered User Join Date: Jun 2007 Posts: 25 OS: Windows XP	[SOLVED] Probably a stupid question, but... ... I'm a stupid kind of guy, so it only seems appropriate. I've been working for a week to try to solve an issue of getting my old hard drive to work with my new MB and CPU, and where it stands now is when I boot it says Invalid System Disk. When I check out the CMOS, under primary IDE drive it says "not detected". After checking the obvious (are cables plugged in properly and firmly attach? Power cable connected? etc), I'm wondering if I have my jumpers set right. The reason I'm wondering is I currently have 1 Hard drive and 1 DVD-Rom drive on the primary cable (the stupid motherboard doesn't have secondary IDE connector), and I have the Hard drive set up as Master and the DVD-Rom set up as slave, as I figured that's the way it's supposed to be. However, it seems odd to me because I therefore have to have the hard drive on the end of the IDE cable with the slave drive, the DVD-rom drive, on the middle connector, and that makes it a very, very awkward connection inside the computer. Since the HD bay is below the DVD-rom bay, I have to twist it pretty funny to make the connections reach. Logic seems to tell me that the HD should be off the middle connector and then the end connector will reach effortlessly to the DVD-rom drive. If so, do I make the DVD-Rom drive the master and the HD the slave? Do I make the both Cable select? One of them cable select? I never really learned what the heck cable select even means, to be honest. Perhaps this is why the HD is not being detected at boot up. I know the HD works as when I put it in another computer as a slave, it pops right up in My Computer, so it's being seen. Any advice on the proper way to hook up the HD and DVD-rom to the cable and what jumper settings to use for each would be appreciated. Also, if it means anything, I have the DVD-Rom drive set up as the first boot device and the HD as second. Thanks :)