Order of drives on an IDE cable / boot sector

[thesnowpig]

I am working on my dads Pentium III 400. I have added another hard
drive for backup.
All seems to be fine, but it changed the drive letters thus breaking
the path to a couple of programs. I tried to change the path statement
for these programs in the registry with no success. I thought to
disconnect the new drive and see if the drive letters go back.

I unplugged the power connector to the 2nd (new) drive and the computer
can't find the bootsector. It seems like the boot information has
switched to the new drive (why wouldn't the old drive beable to boot
alone) I didn't unplug the IDE cable, just the power connector. also I
double checked that it was the new drive I disconnected. I also ran
fdisk and viewed the partition (4) the new drive doesn't show up even
though is works.

The IDE cable order is mb ---> new_hd ----> original_hd (not cable
select)

My question: Does it matter what order the drives are connected? Any
Idea why the PC can't boot with the new drive disconnected?

-Thanks

 

[Michael Hawes]

I am working on my dads Pentium III 400. I have added another hard
drive for backup.
All seems to be fine, but it changed the drive letters thus breaking
the path to a couple of programs. I tried to change the path statement
for these programs in the registry with no success. I thought to
disconnect the new drive and see if the drive letters go back.

I unplugged the power connector to the 2nd (new) drive and the computer
can't find the bootsector. It seems like the boot information has
switched to the new drive (why wouldn't the old drive beable to boot
alone) I didn't unplug the IDE cable, just the power connector. also I
double checked that it was the new drive I disconnected. I also ran
fdisk and viewed the partition (4) the new drive doesn't show up even
though is works.

The IDE cable order is mb ---> new_hd ----> original_hd (not cable
select)

My question: Does it matter what order the drives are connected? Any
Idea why the PC can't boot with the new drive disconnected?

-Thanks

Unplug the IDE cable, some systems don't like an unpowered drive on the
cable, it can drag down the signal levels. If primary drive has more than
one partition and second drive has primary as well, it will become drive D.
You didn't say what OS. You need to clear the new drive and only create a
secondary partition with a logical drive(s).
Mike.

 

[johns]

On both drives check that you have the boot drive jumpered Master,
and the backup drive jumpered Slave. You must have both drives
jumpered CS. That stupid thing doesn't work very well.

johns

 

[frischmoutt]

To put the new drive at the end of the others, It's quite simple:
Make a primary hidden partition as small as possible.
Make then an extended partition in which you create a logic disk. Format it.
When you'll boot next time, the letter of the new disk will follow the old
ones.
This is the ___ONLY___ solution with IDE disks.

Dunno with XP. I think that the letters can be re-arranged. Plaese ask if
your OS is XP.

 

[John Weiss]

I am working on my dads Pentium III 400. I have added another hard
drive for backup.
All seems to be fine, but it changed the drive letters thus breaking
the path to a couple of programs. I tried to change the path statement
for these programs in the registry with no success. I thought to
disconnect the new drive and see if the drive letters go back.

I unplugged the power connector to the 2nd (new) drive and the computer
can't find the bootsector. It seems like the boot information has
switched to the new drive (why wouldn't the old drive beable to boot
alone) I didn't unplug the IDE cable, just the power connector. also I
double checked that it was the new drive I disconnected. I also ran
fdisk and viewed the partition (4) the new drive doesn't show up even
though is works.

The IDE cable order is mb ---> new_hd ----> original_hd (not cable
select)

My question: Does it matter what order the drives are connected? Any
Idea why the PC can't boot with the new drive disconnected?

The boot drive must be on the Primary IDE channel as Master drive. On a
non-cable-select system, order on the cable doesn't matter.

In Win NT/2000/XP you can set the drive letters in Disk Manager. On older
OSes (DOS, Win3.x, 95, 98), the drives are set in a specific order: Primary
partition on first HD, Primary partition on next HD (if any), etc; then
Extended partitions and their logical drives on those HDs; then CDs, etc.

If Win NT/2000/XP:

Temporarily remove the non-boot drive (unplug IDE AND power cables).

Check that the boot drive is jumpered as Master, and the non-boot drive
is jumpered as Slave. Note that different brands use different jumper
schemes, so read the HD docs or labels.

Boot the computer with the single drive. Use Disk Manager to
[re-]assign drive letters to any partitions other than the boot (Primary)
partition; the boot drive must be C:. If you want specific letters reserved
for the other drive, just make sure they are not assigned.

Reboot to make sure the drive letters "stick."

Re-install the non-boot drive. Boot the computer. Use Disk Manager to
assign letters as you wish.

Note: Some Win NT/2000 installations will object to multiple HDs that each
have a Primary partition designated as "active" using DOS FDISK. If this is
the case with your system, copy the data from the non-boot drive to a backup
drive or CD/DVD, then repartition and reformat the drive in Disk Manager.
If you create a Primary partition, do not put any system files on it.

 

[David Maynard]

I am working on my dads Pentium III 400. I have added another hard
drive for backup.
All seems to be fine, but it changed the drive letters thus breaking
the path to a couple of programs.

You're apparently running one of the Win9x variants on the P-II because
they wouldn't change with Win2k/XP but I'd need to know what the original
partitions were, and I presume there's more than one or else they're be
nothing to 'break'.

I tried to change the path statement
for these programs in the registry with no success. I thought to
disconnect the new drive and see if the drive letters go back.

I unplugged the power connector to the 2nd (new) drive and the computer
can't find the bootsector. It seems like the boot information has
switched to the new drive (why wouldn't the old drive beable to boot
alone) I didn't unplug the IDE cable, just the power connector.

That's your mistake. Don't just pull power, remove the IDE cable from the
hard drive.

also I
double checked that it was the new drive I disconnected. I also ran
fdisk and viewed the partition (4) the new drive doesn't show up even
though is works.

The IDE cable order is mb ---> new_hd ----> original_hd (not cable
select)

My question: Does it matter what order the drives are connected?

Yes, and what partitions they have as Win9x scans the IDE ports by order
and partition type to set the drive letters with the first primary
partition on the first hard drive being C:.

Any
Idea why the PC can't boot with the new drive disconnected?

Because it isn't disconnected, just powered off loading the cable that's
trying to talk to the live drive.

 

[Jonny]

I am working on my dads Pentium III 400. I have added another hard
drive for backup.
All seems to be fine, but it changed the drive letters thus breaking
the path to a couple of programs. I tried to change the path statement
for these programs in the registry with no success. I thought to
disconnect the new drive and see if the drive letters go back.

If you are using Win9X/ME, and the first drive has an extended partition
with logical drive(s), the operating system will use the hierarchy for msdos
regarding partitions. That is, active primary partition, primary partition,
dos logical drives for assigning drive letters.

I unplugged the power connector to the 2nd (new) drive and the computer
can't find the bootsector. It seems like the boot information has
switched to the new drive (why wouldn't the old drive beable to boot
alone)

If the old drive is a Western Digital, and you didn't change jumpers to
master/alone, makes sense to me.

I didn't unplug the IDE cable, just the power connector. also I

Why not unplug the ide ribbon cable from the new drive?

double checked that it was the new drive I disconnected. I also ran
fdisk and viewed the partition (4) the new drive doesn't show up even
though is works.

The IDE cable order is mb ---> new_hd ----> original_hd (not cable
select)

My question: Does it matter what order the drives are connected? Any

ATA spec says master on the end, slave in the middle. Irregardless
master/slave/csel jumper setting.

Idea why the PC can't boot with the new drive disconnected?

-Thanks

Seems you left out a lot of pertinent information, intentional or not.

 

[thesnowpig]

This is excellent information, and more then I hoped for. Thanks to
everyone who responded. I am still working on the partitions but the
problem with the single drive(WD) not booting was due to the ide and
power cable not being disconnected. and the single drive needed the
jumper removed. (can't be jumpered master as a standalone) Thanks
again.

 

[Jonny]

If its a recent WD, you can put the jumper at pins 3 and 5. Does nothing to
the hard drive master/alone configuration, but does provide a storage
location for the jumper pin if you need to use it later.