magnethead

I've found that sometimes different drives and cables won't agree, there is a pin towards the middle, sometimes it's there on the drive sometimes it's not, sometimes it's there on the cable sometime's it's solid (easy check- see if it's 40 or 80 wire). So might check that. 7200.8 barracuda is still fairly new so that's probably what it is. Since it's on CD it's a 40 wire, but the HDD wants an 80 wire connector. Thankfully, 80's usually agree with opticals.