Is it possible to take out my hard drive from my other computer that had windows millenium installed on it and put it in my new computer that has windows XP. Because i already tried to but it's not reading that it's there. The old hard drive is like a Western Digital 80 GB hard drive. Does anyone know how to do this?
If you are adding it as a second drive to your XP computer, make sure you set the jumpers on both. The existing XP drive will need to be master, the older one a slave. Check here for jumper setting if you do not know them: http://support.wdc.com/techinfo/general/jumpers.asp
Well my hard drive on my new computer doesn't use an IDE cable. It's a new dell 4600. It uses a smaller type cord and nothing branches off of it like the IDE cable. But i do have another slot on my motherboard where I can plug another IDE cable into, will that one work for my hard drive I am trying to install that uses IDE?
Sounds like the new one might be a Serial ATA drive instead of EIDE. You should be able to hook the old drive up the EIDE port on the motherboard. You might need to check to see if it is enabled in the BIOS, they might have disabled the EIDE interface since you are using SATA. I would try that and check during boot up that the BIOS is seeing your old drive.
Ok so i have the IDE enabled and i have the hard drive set at slave with the jumper. I selected the primary slave drive to be ON in the setup menu and then i save and exit. Then it takes me to a black screen and says primary drive 1 not found, so it detects that there is something plugged in but it can't understand what it is. Then it says F1 to continue and F2 to enter setup. So i push F1 to continue but when it loads XP then i try to find the drive under hardware and it's not there.
Until you can get the bios to recognize it, XP isn't going to see it either. Since it is on a different controller make it the primary or only drive on the system. It sounds like you have got the ide interface enabled in the bios, now you just need to get it to see the drive. Also make sure that you are plugged into the correct spot on the motherboard. Many have places for both primary and secondary ide devices. When I posted the jumpter info and told you to set it to slave, you hadn't said that your existing drive wasn't ide so I give you info for a 2 ide drive setup.
Your right Xian... With IDE, if it cant find a Master on that channel it doesnt bother looking for a Slave. So if u change the IDE hdd to Master on the Primary Channel, go into bios and put Primary Master to Auto, restart comptuer. Should detect it.. Regards CoZZa
Well if I put that drive to primary master, won't it try and boot from that drive instead of my SATA drive?
As far as i know SATA will boot then IDE.... if not try putting it on Master on the Secondary Channell.... Regards CoZZa
Yeah when i tried puting that hard drive on the primary master it tried booting that instead of my SATA drive. So you think I should switch my DVDROM and DVD+RW writer to the primary IDE the trying to use my old hard drive on the secondary IDE?
You could try that, not sure if it will work, but give that a try, if not, try putting your DVD-ROM as Primary Slave, DVD-RW as Secondary Master and other HDD as Secondary Slave. Regards CoZZa
Ok, I think my primary IDE slot on my motherboard doesn't work because I connected my hard drive to the secondary IDE and it detected it. Then I connected both of my DVDROM drive and DVD+RW drive to the primary IDE slot and my computer couldn't find them. The computer detected both the DVD drives on the secondary but not the primary. Do you think my primary IDE slot is bad or is there some special way I need to eneable it.
Just double check in the BIOS (usually hit DEL on powerup) that the Primary and Secondary IDE channel is enable. Im not sure with SATA and IDE at the same time, dont have any SATA devices here. Maybe SATA uses the primary channel?.. Not sure.. Regards CoZZa
Well even with my primary IDE enabled it doesn't even find my DVD drives when I hook them up to it, even though my secondary slot detects the drives. With SATA there is it's own primary and secondary slot. I'm not sure if it uses the primary IDE, I think my best way to go now is to just have to buy another SATA drive because nothing at all is working on my primary IDE channel.
The channel must be working... maybe they share resources? therefore in therory if u put something on the Secondary SATA channel, maybe the Secondary Channel of IDE might not work. ?? That would prob b ur best bet is to go get a SATA HDD... Regards CoZZa
