new to this group: problems with drives

[Professor Joe]

In our library we have one computer that was donated to us new last
year. An emachine. Have used this for small tasks due to one hard drive
60gig.

We want to add another drive. The one single IDE cable : half has red
line, half does not. Yes that's right. Have had four 1sy-year student
techs in our computer dept.look at it, but no one can come up with what
to do.

The red line cable goes to CD drive.
The nonred line cable goes to the existing master.

We have been working on jumpers and drives trying to add an existing
hard drive from a bad box to it as a slave, to copy off data we stored
for the library...

nothing is working. We keep getting boot errors.

One drive (Emachine master) is xphome.
the Other drive to add as slave is xppro, shouldn't matter, but just
won't work.


Thanks for all your help.

 

[Guest]

The bios setup utility will allow you to set the drive seek to 'auto'. If the
jumpers on the drives are right, master and slave, giving up the CD, and
installing the two drives should be read ok.

 

[Patrick Keenan]

In our library we have one computer that was donated to us new last year.
An emachine. Have used this for small tasks due to one hard drive 60gig.

We want to add another drive. The one single IDE cable : half has red
line, half does not. Yes that's right. Have had four 1sy-year student
techs in our computer dept.look at it, but no one can come up with what to
do.

The red line cable goes to CD drive.
The nonred line cable goes to the existing master.

We have been working on jumpers and drives trying to add an existing hard
drive from a bad box to it as a slave, to copy off data we stored for the
library...

nothing is working. We keep getting boot errors.

One drive (Emachine master) is xphome.
the Other drive to add as slave is xppro, shouldn't matter, but just won't
work.


Thanks for all your help.

Does the system have two IDE channels, or just one? Where are the existing
drives located on these channels? If there's only one channel, disconnect
the CD and set the jumpers on the temporary hard disk exactly the same as
the CD.

If there's two channels, with the CD on the second channel, set the existing
drive to either cable select (and put it at the END of the cable) or to
master, with the second drive as either cable select (and NOT at the end of
the cable) or as slave. The Master may have a "slave present" jumper.

HTH
-pk

 

[Professor Joe]

Professor Joe presented the following explanation :

In our library we have one computer that was donated to us new last year. An
emachine. Have used this for small tasks due to one hard drive 60gig.

We want to add another drive. The one single IDE cable : half has red line,
half does not. Yes that's right. Have had four 1sy-year student techs in our
computer dept.look at it, but no one can come up with what to do.

The red line cable goes to CD drive.
The nonred line cable goes to the existing master.

We have been working on jumpers and drives trying to add an existing hard
drive from a bad box to it as a slave, to copy off data we stored for the
library...

nothing is working. We keep getting boot errors.

One drive (Emachine master) is xphome.
the Other drive to add as slave is xppro, shouldn't matter, but just won't
work.


Thanks for all your help.

===
thanks for the quick replies!!!!!!!

At base on mobo, one connector which divides.

One side: red line"-- last connector is CD

other side: no red line: connected to master.
Have done jumpers til we are blue in the face on master drive that came
with Emachine, just keep getting boot errors. Last connector on this
side is master (only) drive.

Both drives are Seagate and have looked at jumper settings onsite. Have
them correct.

Uncertain what channels are, so bear with us.

 

[You Know Who ~]

Virtually all motherboards have two IDE controllers and each controller
handles two drives. Clearly, yours is taken up with the main drive and the
CD ROM.
I would look for another controller. Should look just like the socket which
the current drive is plugged into on the motherboard. You will have to
supply a cable (most motherboards come with cables for both controllers, but
emachines might have been cheap in that regard).

 

[Nepatsfan]

In

In our library we have one computer that was donated to us
new last
year. An emachine. Have used this for small tasks due to one
hard
drive 60gig.

We want to add another drive. The one single IDE cable :
half has red
line, half does not. Yes that's right. Have had four
1sy-year student
techs in our computer dept.look at it, but no one can come up
with
what to do.

The red line cable goes to CD drive.
The nonred line cable goes to the existing master.

We have been working on jumpers and drives trying to add an
existing
hard drive from a bad box to it as a slave, to copy off data
we stored
for the library...

nothing is working. We keep getting boot errors.

One drive (Emachine master) is xphome.
the Other drive to add as slave is xppro, shouldn't matter,
but just
won't work.


Thanks for all your help.

Here are a couple of suggestions that might get you an answer
to your question.

First off, It would be helpful if you'd pass along the model
number of the eMachines computer.

Second, if it's possible, you might want to get a digital
camera and take a picture of the motherboard and the
troublesome cable. Depending on your ISP, you may be able to
attach the image to a future post to this newsgroup. If that's
not possible, there are sites on the internet which will
provide free hosting of images. Here's one,

http://imageshack.us/

Getting back to your problem, you're trying to add a hard drive
from what you describe as a "bad box". Did any of the students
test this drive in another computer to see if it even works?
How about using a different IDE cable instead of the one that
came with the eMachines system?

Noting that the system was donated, I'm guessing that it might
not be in the library's budget, but an external USB hard drive
enclosure would be another way of adding a second hard drive to
this system.

Good luck

Nepatsfan

 

[Professor Joe]

In

Here are a couple of suggestions that might get you an answer to your
question.

First off, It would be helpful if you'd pass along the model number of the
eMachines computer.

Second, if it's possible, you might want to get a digital camera and take a
picture of the motherboard and the troublesome cable. Depending on your ISP,
you may be able to attach the image to a future post to this newsgroup. If
that's not possible, there are sites on the internet which will provide free
hosting of images. Here's one,

http://imageshack.us/

Getting back to your problem, you're trying to add a hard drive from what you
describe as a "bad box". Did any of the students test this drive in another
computer to see if it even works? How about using a different IDE cable
instead of the one that came with the eMachines system?

Noting that the system was donated, I'm guessing that it might not be in the
library's budget, but an external USB hard drive enclosure would be another
way of adding a second hard drive to this system.

Good luck

Nepatsfan

====================
thanks all for the replies

Nepatsfan, had been thinking about the USB internal-to-external drive
concept. Much thanks all.

 

[Professor Joe]

Nepatsfan expressed precisely :

In

Here are a couple of suggestions that might get you an answer to your
question.

First off, It would be helpful if you'd pass along the model number of the
eMachines computer.

Second, if it's possible, you might want to get a digital camera and take a
picture of the motherboard and the troublesome cable. Depending on your ISP,
you may be able to attach the image to a future post to this newsgroup. If
that's not possible, there are sites on the internet which will provide free
hosting of images. Here's one,

http://imageshack.us/

Getting back to your problem, you're trying to add a hard drive from what you
describe as a "bad box". Did any of the students test this drive in another
computer to see if it even works? How about using a different IDE cable
instead of the one that came with the eMachines system?

Noting that the system was donated, I'm guessing that it might not be in the
library's budget, but an external USB hard drive enclosure would be another
way of adding a second hard drive to this system.

Good luck

Nepatsfan

=====================
thanks for the great suggestion about disconnecting CD, changed jumper
to CD jumper format, and turned it back on. WALLAH!!!!!!!

Whew!
Much thanks, that is GREAT!

 

[Professor Joe]

Professor Joe was thinking very hard :

Nepatsfan expressed precisely :

=====================
thanks for the great suggestion about disconnecting CD, changed jumper to CD
jumper format, and turned it back on. WALLAH!!!!!!!

Whew!
Much thanks, that is GREAT!

=========
going to ask one more question and much thanks again to this FAB u lous
group.

Want to hook CD back up to its original cables, there is one black
empty connector on that string (then in the middle between CD and
mobo), can I hook slave drive to that, should it work that way?

Thanks again to this great group. We will be back, I am sure.

 

[Guest]

Cable position only matters if you do not have jumpers in play. The middle
connector should do fine. Even trying both a master jumper setting, then a
slave couldn't hurt anything.

 

[Professor Joe]

Cable position only matters if you do not have jumpers in play. The middle
connector should do fine. Even trying both a master jumper setting, then a
slave couldn't hurt anything.

WONderful Mark, much deep thanks. My forte' is Philosophy and
Humanitarian Sciences, but I guess I am getting into Computer 101 with
you all.

Have an excellent day, you certainly made ours.

Professor Joe

 

[Professor Joe]

Professor Joe brought next idea :

In our library we have one computer that was donated to us new last year. An
emachine. Have used this for small tasks due to one hard drive 60gig.

We want to add another drive. The one single IDE cable : half has red line,
half does not. Yes that's right. Have had four 1sy-year student techs in our
computer dept.look at it, but no one can come up with what to do.

The red line cable goes to CD drive.
The nonred line cable goes to the existing master.

We have been working on jumpers and drives trying to add an existing hard
drive from a bad box to it as a slave, to copy off data we stored for the
library...

nothing is working. We keep getting boot errors.

One drive (Emachine master) is xphome.
the Other drive to add as slave is xppro, shouldn't matter, but just won't
work.


Thanks for all your help.

==================
Good morning, we are back with a new adventure.

We didn't move the lil plastic jumpers from previous position.

Second drive/slave that was hooked successfully to CD drive cables was
hooked up to grey connector on cable that has black/master.
CD hooked back up to its own cables as before.

Tried to hook it up on master cable, on grey connector in the middle
between mobo and master drive. Got a ntldr error at booting.

Turned machine off, so far only way we can have master/slave/CD are
working is:

master still on its own cable (black connector)
CD hooked up to its own cables of course.
***Important part here: Secondary/slave drive was hooked into the
second black connector on CD drive cable.

Does not show complete size of 250gig. Only shows 127gig.
Also in Windows Explorer does not show name as a drive, only as a
MMC/SD....

Fortunately we had not packed that drive full, for I hesitate we would
not be able to see it.

Professor Joe
Any great help like yesterday is appreciared deeply. Our Computer Prof
passed away and I am trying to keep my own depts and Computers going.
I am certain we will have other issues and your friendly and
understandable help has been fabulous.