Second hard drive not recognized

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redcaspar

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Help!
I have a Dell Dimension XPS Gen 2 computer. It boots from a serial ATA 25oGB hard drive. It has a dual cd/dvd attached. I installed a second hard drive for additional storage and the BIOS does not recognize this drive. All drives in the computer are set to cable select and I set the new drive to cable select also. The slave (gray) cable is connected to the drive and the blue cable connected to the primary hard-drive connector on the mobo.

If I connect the blue cable to the mobo and the black cable to the drive, the BIOS recognizes the new drive but then won't boot from the normal boot drive. The new drive is a 160GB ATA/133.

Can anybody tell me what I am doing wrong.

Thanks
 
You have to format the hard drive via DOS or local computer management for windows to recongnize it
 
redcaspar said:
Help!
I have a Dell Dimension XPS Gen 2 computer. It boots from a serial ATA 25oGB hard drive.

The slave (gray) cable is connected to the drive and the blue cable connected to the primary hard-drive connector on the mobo.


Thanks

?

is the primary hard drive hook up to sata or ide? it seems like you said both
 
EricB

The SATA drive is a serial and it is my normal boot drive and I don't want to change this.

The slave (gray) cable is connected to the new drive and the blue cable connected to the primary hard-drive connector on the mobo for the new drive. I don't want the new drive to be the boot, just need for additional storage. I need the BIOS to recognize the new drive so I can format it.

Thanks
 
Some Dells will not notice a HD until it has been partitioned and formated. I worked on my brother-in-laws Dell not too long ago and he had the same issue. What you have to do is just hook it up. Put in your Windows XP CD and boot to it, and it should recognize it there. If it does, just use WinXP to partition and format the HD but 'back-out' after that.

Also, sometimes depending on the mfg. of the HD. You can get tools from the site to partition and format the Drive. Maxtor has something like Maxtools or Max-something that helps. Also, Seagate has tools as well. Assuming you can get to a desktop wioth it hooked up.

Also, do you know if the drive supports 'hot swap'? A term I may have taken out of context, but it is when the HD can be connected on a running PC. Some SATA HDs allow this but I do not know about ATA.
 
FORMAT A:\

Use this command, replacing A with the partition you wish to format.

You may also need to set your jumpers to the appropriate master and slave.
 
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