Check the jumpers on the drives. Make sure new drive is jumpered as "slave".
Original drive may have a jumper position marked "master with slave". Use
that. Don't use "cable select". "cable select"... in theory, should work but
for troubleshooting use the master / slave jumper positions. And just to be
anal make sure the original drive is connected to the "end" of the ribbon
cable and the new drive is not. Like Rick said you should be able to use 4
IDE drives. Two per ribbon cable. Leave the DVD/CD drive on its own cable
and use a single cable for your 2 hard drives.
In your bios... make sure the new drive is set up properly. Make sure it is
enabled. (turned on) Make sure you "exit and SAVE" as you leave bios.
"LD" <ldavies@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:e0vo6zZYIHA.3696@xxxxxx
Quote:
> Hi
>
> I installed a secondary HDD in my wife's Vista Premium PC. It 'installed"
> and drivers installed and Vista "says" your new HDD is ready to use.
>
> However, in Computer/Explorer there is NO 2nd HDD and I couldnt "use
> it"....
>
> I took it down to local computer shop. They investigated and told me that
> the motherboard would only recognise 2 IDE devices (the first HDD and the
> DVD Burner). They suggested that they replace the DVD Burner with an ATAPI
> device (?) which I did OK and that then the 2nd IDE HDD would be
> operational.
>
> Now I DID rush them, and I didnt actually see it working, but paying for
> it, I left the shop and came home with the PC.
>
> Of course, the 2nd HDD is STILL not visible/usable in any way.
>
> When I right click on My Computer and go "Manage" and go thru to Disk
> Management, the 2nd HDD IS VISIBLE. I thought I may have to Format it. BUT
> clicking on this brings up an error message that Disk Management has
> failed and to restart your computer. I do, no help......
>
> ...and EVERY tiem I DO restart the computer the SYSTEM has changed screen
> comes up 2 times:
>
> 1st.time ....Found a new HDD (the original, first HDD) hit F1 to accept
> changes
> 2nd time... Found new HDD (NEW 250GB one) and LiteOn DVD Burner hit F1
> to accept changes
>
> then correctly thru to normal Vista boot/login...
>
> This is EVERY TIME I start PC....
>
> Any thoughts/advice would be greatly GREATLY welcomed.
>
> Rgds
> Rod
> Perth
>