BIOS refuses to recognize master....

[EricB]

put the hard drive jumpers on the cs pins, the top one is master.
your cables must support this option (most new ones do)

 

[Naga]

dont think my basic ribbon IDE cables support that

 

[TheMajor]

Its not the cable.
On 40 conductor cable: put master on middle connector
On 80 conductor cable: put master on last connector

 

[Naga]

ahhh, im not up to speed on technical terms what does 40 conductor/80 conductor mean? and are you referring to the jumper connectors?

 

[ekÆsine]

there are 2 kinds of IDE cables. the one with fatter wires is 40 conductor, it has 40 wires. 80 conductor, 80 wires is the thinner one. if setting both to cable select doesn't work set each as master or slave depending on what location the drive is connected on the IDE cable. which hard disk is the bios refusing to recognise? it may be a bios limitation, you may need to use an IDE card

 

[Naga]

it recognizes my 120 gig as a slave only, but not as master

 

[Naga]

if i do connect the 120 w/ an IDE card as my only hd, will the computer recognize it to boot off of it?

 

[TheMajor]

Maybe. I think you need to select SCSI as primary boot device. Not sure though.

 

[ekÆsine]

it recognizes my 120 gig as a slave only, but not as master

The fact that your BIOS can recognize it means that it is not a bios limitation. Naga did you remove the 40GB drive than move the 120 GB drive from the middle of the IDE cable and connect it at the end of the cable THAN set it as cable select or master? you can't set the 120GB drive as master if you have it connected to the middle of the cable.

 

[TheMajor]

Yes, put it on the end of the cable. It should work in the middle also, as long as there's another device on the end of the cable.