Moving Hard Drives

[Charles W. Babcock]

I have my primary master and a slave cd-rom drive on one channel and my
secondary master hard drive and a cd-rom writer on the other channel of
my motherboard. I'd like to move the two hard drives and put them on the
same channel and have the burner as a master and the cd-rom drive as a
slave on the other channel. How do I do this?

Chuck

 

[John John]

That's another one of them "tricky" questions. It involves knowing the
difference between "Cable Select" and "Jumper Select" (for lack of my
knowledge of a better term). On top of that it involves cables to be
capable of detecting "Cable Select" mode. In other words, some cables
can't differentiate "Cable Select", the cable has to be a "Cable Select"
cable or else the drive must be "jumped". Many (probably most) drives
and IDE peripherals are shipped with "Non" cable select cables. These
cables cost at LEAST six cents more and probably as MUCH as twelve cents
more than regular IDE cables so you can understand that not all
manufacturers can afford such a splurge.

Consult you pc manual and/or your CD-writer/HD installation manual.
Usually that is explained reasonably well there. Other than that it's a
trial and error deal. In between trials you may have to change the HDD1
settings in the BIOS, try "AUTO" recognition first. Pay attention to
the "End" Connector, on cable select it's opposite to "Jumper Mode"
IIRC. A search on the net will eventually yield the information you need.

http://members.cox.net/yesshows/CD.html
http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/if/ide/conf.htm

John

 

[Need info]

Do Cable Select cables look different? Can one identify them by sight? Cable Select is very convenient
when swapping several hard drives around. BTW the "splurge" comment was great....

 

[John John]

These cables are practically identical as a matter of fact I think they
are the same save that a "Jump" cable has one connection not made at the
terminal connection (end). They have... like 44 connections instead of
45... or 22 instead of 23... or whatever. It's the very same thing but
on a Monday morning someone forgot to solder the last pin on the cable.
Cable select cables may have a "CS" number or designation stamped on
them. Or they may have a black line on one side, or maybe that's the
other way around. You can also sometimes "google" the part number on
the cable and get more information. Maybe the mobo has to be able to
detect CS also, but if so they have been able to do so since W95.

This post has cost me .015 cents of electricity. I work for free but
expenses are extra. If my information is wrong you are limited to sue
me for power costs...

John

 

[Charles W. Babcock]

I don't mind resetting the jumpers on the drives but what I want to know
is how to do this with Windows 2000 which doesn't like drives to be
moved. Do I uninstall them in Device Manager and then switch cables and
jumpers and then start up the machine?

Chuck

 

[John John]

No, no, no, no, no, no.... The primary drive will remain the same. You
don't go and change anything in Windows 2000 Device manager, at least
not unless W2K balks completely at the change, which I have rarely seen.
Your Windows installation will boot on the primary drive, exactly as
it is now. The only place where you may have to change things might be
in the BIOS and only with drives that aren't recognized or if the boot
order prevents HDD0 booting. LEAVE your Windows 2000 HD exactly as it
is connected, on the same IDE controller and on the same cable location.
Disconnect the other stuff and move it, keeping in mind CS and
Jumpers. You should be able to disconnect all IDE devices except for
the W2K drive and Windows should still boot. If Windows doesn't boot
then it means that you disconnected or moved the wrong drive. When it
comes to moving or adding IDE devices other than the Windows 2000 drive,
Windows is quite capable and adept at properly figuring things out
without intervention. Look at where the stuff is plugged in and just
move it around, if the pc don't boot just put it back to as it was,
trial and error. And if it really goes ka-boom on you you can use a
boot manager (BootIt NG) and still boot W2K. There is no device manager
involvements in slaving a drive on W2K, but the drive letter assignment
might appear out of whack in Windows, that can be changed with the Disk
Management Console or moving the drive cables around after the fact. A
caveat to that might be CD/DVD writers and Adatptec/Roxio and others, it
may not like the move, but Windows 2000 won't or shouldn't even bat an
eye at the changes. It's quite simple really, hard drives and IDE
devices are recognized at the BIOS level, Windows takes it cue from
there. If Windows doesn't see or recognize IDE devices it most likely
is a cabling or BIOS problem, Windows almost always sees these devices
properly even when moved around and that has been so since Windows 95.

John

 

[Charles W. Babcock]

I tried switching jumpers and cables to rearrange drives and Windows
2000 came up with a blue screen error upon startup saying "Boot Disk
Inaccessible." Still had my Windows 2000 on the primary master. Just
moved my second hard drive to become its slave and the two CD drives.

Chuck

 

[John John]

Put them back as they were. You made a mistake in the jumper settings
or plugged the drives in the wrong IDE controller. "Boot Disk
Inaccessible" means that your Master became slave or HDD0 became HDD1.
If on cable select both devices should have jumpers set to "Cable
Select", the location of the drive on the cable will determine which one
is master and which one is slave. If not using cable select one drive
should be set to Master and the other to Slave.

John