Using IDE's

[metaltim]

Ok, I'm having trouble hooking up my drives on my new comp. Here is the deal.
I have two hard drives (20 & 120). the 20 will have the OS. Also in the mix is a DVD-rom and a CD/RW drive. Maybe someone should just explain to me from step 1 how to get this working.. I thought I knew for the most part what was going on, but am getting no where with my attempts. I should mention I'm using xp-pro with an ASUS mobo.
So far what I'm seeing is that as soon as i plug in something to the secondary, then in BIOS, NOTHING is recognized. If I unplug the secondary cable from MOBO, then whatever is on primary will be recognized. Also (sometimes, no pattern really) when i plug whichever cd drive in, then it doesnt get power: unplug the IDE from the drive, and then the lights go on. Maybe I'm just doing something wrong in the proccess, and a more detailed explanation of how to do this from step 1 will take care of that....
Thanks for whoever takes the time to work with me..
tim

 

[birddog]

first of all, make sure all your IDE channels in the BIOS are set for 'auto'. Then check to make sure the secondary IDE channel on your board is not dead. Plug a known good drive (with a known good IDE cable) into the secondary IDE controller with the Primary one empty (to see if it is recognized when the coputer scans the drives).

next, make sure all your jumpers are set right. Your 20 GB should be set for master & pluged in as the primary master (master is always at the end of the cable, slave in the middle). The drive with your operating system needs to be the primary master. Note: some HD's have a jumper setting for HD single drive only, make sure it is not set that way. You want it set for plain old 'master'. I'd put the CD-ROM or the CDRW as the primary slave (set jumper for slave). On your secondary channel, I'd put the 2nd hard drive & the other cd/cdrw drive (make sure you have the proper cable position & jumper settings).

Something else to check out is the cable you are using. I have had problems on some newer maxtor drives (the ATA133 ones) when using an older ata66/ata100 cable. These cables work just fine with WD & older maxtor drives, but not with the newer ones. I'd get data corruptions & the computer would call it a '!!!!!Maytor!!!!!' (I've seen this on more than one drive on more than one motherboard). Old ATA33 cables seem fine with them (but kills HD performance by limiting transfer rates) along with the cables that are supplied with the HD (I've had this problem using the cables provided with the motehrboads if they are not the ATA-133 ones). If you bought the large HD retail, use the cable that came with it.

 

[Whitney]

Hi,

I have a question for birddog there; why wouldn't you put the two hard drives on IDE1 as primary and slave, and then the two slower ATAPI devices on the second channel as primary and slave?

 

[metaltim]

Yeh good question, which configuration would be better. Also, the 20 GB hard drive (http://www.axiontech.com/cgi-local/prdtinfo.asp?prdt=HDMA6L020J1) was OEM, any idea on where I can find the jumper settings for this hard drive? Another thing about the master being at the end of cable.. how will I possibly reach from the hard drive all the way to the cdrom drive with the same cable? maybe putting both hard drives on primary is the way to do this, because of the length of the cables..

 

[Whitney]

Ya, I've always read that having an ATAPI device, like DVD, cd, etc. on the same channel as the hard drive really impairs the hard drive speed.

Having your dvd and cd on different channels is nice if you are copying dvd to cd from what I hear, but I think I would prefer to have the optimal hard drive setup more than the dvd-cd setup.

If you had both hard drives on primary, there would be no prob reachind them with one cable, If you are trying to split them up, then you might have to get a adapter, or a digital doc 5, or something that would allow you to mount a 3.5" in a 5.25" bay. But then you go losing your 5.25" bays.

If I had been setting this up, I would never even have given it another thought, I would have just gone ADE's on one channel, ATAPI's on the other. But that could be wrong, that's why I was asking the question.

As far as the jumper settings, You will prob. have to find the website that shows it somewhere, if it's not printed on the drive itself. do a search on Google, maybe someone else figured it out too.

 

[Mavrick007]

Metaltim, if you want to find settings for your master/slave jumpers on the hd, then look up the model number and go to the manufacturers site and dnload the documentation on it. There will probably be pictures with the way the end of the drive looks too. Chances are that the machine sees two drives as master when you are booting up and therefore doesn't go through the post to boot.

Machines now aren't really affected by performance problems when optical drives are attached to the same channel as a hard drive. It used to be that different mode ide hard drives on the same channel would default to the slowest (ata 33 and ata 100 would give both at ata 33 on the same channel), but the new mobos mostly give independent channelling so that the drives operate independent of the others. You can put two hard drives of different speeds or a cdrom with a hard drive and not worry about losing out in performance on "current" motherboards.

The best scenario that I find when setting up a machine is to put drives like this:

Primary master: hd 1 (boot drive)
Primary slave: dvd/cdrom
Secondary master: hd 2 (apps) or cdrw
Secondary slave: cdrw or hd 2 (apps) --> these are depending on preference of what you want either hd or cdrw as master

That way you have the maximum reliability of not overloading the ide bus when copying cd to cd, cd to hd, or hd to cd cause they operate on separate channels. CD-roms will not make your hard drives default to slowest speeds (ie. cd will not make an ata100/133 drive default to ata 33 or PIO mode).

 

[birddog]

THe reason I suggested you put the hard drives on different channels is that they use the most bandwidth (both in volume & frequancy). If you have them on the same channel, they may fight each other for the bandwidth & both get slowed down. They will work on the same channel, but you may not get top performance out of them that way.

As far as the old thinking that putting a CD-ROM on the same channel as you HD would slow you down, that does not rally apply any more. The IDE controllers that were out years ago would switch to the slowest speed on the cable. With the advant of the ATA-66 & later controllers, that does not happen anymore. This is why the master is not specified to be the end of the cable. Back in ATA-33 & PIO mode days, there was no specification as to which plug went to the master drive & which one went to the slave one.

You may have to move the drives around in your case to be able to get the cables to reach them. Try putting the HD's in the top 3 1/2 bays & the CD drives in the lower 5 1/4 bays. You may have to mount one of the HD's in a 5 1/4 bay using a bay adaptor (every Maxtor Drive I have ever bought has them in the box).

What brand are your hard drives? The jumper settings should be printed on top of the drives. I don't think I have ever come across a HD that did not have the jumper setting printed on it somewhere. I mainly use WD & Maxtor drives, but I have also use Seagae & IBM drives & all that I have come across have had the jumper settings marked. Also, you have mentioned that it is an Asus mobo, what exact board is it? THe more info you provide to the people here, the better they can help you.

 

[metaltim]

Well i cant remeber the exact models of components. the 20 GB hardrive, scroll up, i posted the link to it. The 120 GB is an IBM. Anyway.. when i get home today, i'll try all this out and post my findings.
thanks for the responses.
tim

 

[birddog]

the 20 gb is a maxtor according to your link. Every maxtor I have seen has had the jumper settings marked on the top of the drive (you will need to remove the drive from the case to see it).