IDE Problem

[mdonders]

Ok here is my problem.

My dad was about to throw out an old Dell, but I told him to give it to me so I can build a server. It is a P2 533MHz processor with 512MB RAM in it from my old desktop because I had a lot of extra RAM in it. I have one DVD-RW drive and three hard drives plugged in there, one on master and others on Cable Select. I have my DVD-RW drive on CS and its plugged into the primary IDE with the OS hard drive. The other two are CS on secondary IDE.

The BIOS doesn't pick any of the drives up, but this is where it gets weird. If I try to eject the drive with the IDE cable in the back it will not eject. BUT if I pull the IDE cable out of the DVD-RW drive it will eject, but obviously cannot read the CD-ROM inside. I changed IDE slots and changed IDE cables.

Any ideas?
I am very stumped.

 

[b1gapl]

Hey mdonders,
Welcome to T.F.!!

Set the DVD drive and the other two secondary hard drives as slave. And make sure everything is securely and properly connected.

 

[mdonders]

Ok so I am going to put my OS HDD as Master and my DVD drive to slave and plug that into primary IDE and then I am going to put other two hard drives on slave and put those on secondary IDE?

Thanks a ton for quick response!

 

[mdonders]

Ok well here is another problem to go along with this.

I am putting together a server as said before so I am going to run Win2k on my 40GB HDD and have two other drives as my storage drives. No matter what I do I cannot get the Win2k install to see the hard drive. After putting the DVD Drive on master it worked and it now boots from the CD, like it should. But the Win2k installation doesn't see the hard drive.

The IDE setup I have now is the HDD on master on primary IDE bus and the DVD Drive on Master on secondary IDE bus. Those are the only two things I have plugged in now. Any ideas? And Bios is up to date.

Shouldn't need third party drivers to see it right?