Need help formatting/installing an old hard drive.

[bartthecartoon]

I have an old Quantum Fireball Ex 3.5" hard drive and I wanted to add it to my computer, just because I'm bored and it is completely functional. Maybe I could even back up files with it. Anyway, this was the main hard drive in my old computer, but every time I try to put it into my current rig the computer boots from this drive. I don't know how to formatt it or get it to not boot from this drive. Can anyone help me? (I did have it in the slave position, not the master position).

 

[bartthecartoon]

When i put in the old one it doesn't recognize the one that was in the computer at all. any help?

 

[dnoch]

See if your BIOS settings allow you to have more than one HDD connected at once, and set it to boot from your current one.

 

[bartthecartoon]

Where would that be located in my BIOS settings?

 

[bartthecartoon]

I just tried my computer with my current hard drive and another one that I have that is completly clean. I cann't use that one in my computer though, because it has less storage and it is 5 1/4" for some strange reason. Can anyone tell me how to just completly whipe the hard drive, I think it will work if I can.

 

[cedjunior]

Most BIOS setups have the boot settings under "Boot" in the main menu. You should be able to set boot priority to different drives, floppy, optical, and hard drives. You want to set first priority to the hard driver with the OS it.

 

[bartthecartoon]

I can't select it as my boot drive, because when I plug in the other drive my main drive doesn't get recognized. Instead Windows 98 will just load...

 

[cedjunior]

ok so let me get this straight, you start up your computer and enter the bios, go to the Boot section of the bios, and the old hard drive you plugged in is listed, but the hard drive came with the computer is not on the list. Then when you exit the bios Windows '98 attempts to load?

Did you check the hardware profile in the bios to see if both the hard drives are listed there?

 

[bartthecartoon]

The hard drive that came with the computer isn't listed anywhere. I have even checked the My Computer section of Windows 98 after that fully loads.

 

[Amd2800]

Arnt you all forgetting something

Jumpers

Make sure it is set to slave