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ATA hard drives master/slave

  • 20-06-2003 7:55am
    #1
    flywheel
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,027 ✭✭✭


    Hi, I'm having some trouble getting two ATA hard drives working simultaneously on a PC

    It's a Gateway PIII 500 (specs here). It has a Promise Ultra66 PCI card with two IDE interfaces.

    A Quantum Fireball Plus KX Ultra ATA/66 attached was originally attahced on IDE 1.

    Bought a new hard drive, a Maxtor DiamondPlus 8 Ultra ATA/133 and installed this on IDE 1 on the Promise card.

    (There are no hard drives attached to the motherboads IDE interfaces - only a CD and Zip drive).

    Windows is all happy with one (Master) drive connected at a time. But I want copy all the data on the old drive (Quantum Fireball) to the new drive. I want to use it (Quantum Fireball) as a slave for spare storage, with the Maxtor DiamondPlus as the master.

    So here's the problem, no matter what I've tried Windows won't assign the slave a drive letter. Both drives are there in Device Manager, but no drive letter is assigned. Jumpers (master/slave) set ok, position on ATA cable set ok, also tried settng each as master on two seperate ATA cables to IDE 1 and IDE 2 and no joy.

    Anyone any ideas how to get the both drives seen/working?

    Formatting the old drive isn't an option it has data on it. On holidays in my brothers place so no access to a CD burner, network or enough ZIP disks to get though a backup. Anyhow I wanted to have both drives available to him.

    Any help, much appreciated,
    Thanks,
    BrianG


Comments

  • #2
    ozpass
    Closed Accounts Posts: 931 ✭✭✭ozpass


    How about moving one of the drives over to the onboard IDE interface (as a master) for the purpose of copying the data?


  • #3
    flywheel
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,027 ✭✭✭flywheel


    thanks ozpass

    for some reason the old drive was only available if it was the drive that booted the machine (couldn't even get it recognised when booting from a windows boot floppy)

    so took your advice and attached the new drive to the main board with the old drive attached to the card (which it booted from) to throw everything he needed from the old drive - wouldn't work the other way around - had to fdisk and format the old drive to get it working as a slave - then it was happy to run as a second drive

    ended up he preferred the new drive on it's own (it's very quiet and big enough for his needs) - so i'm taking the old kit home with me (now it's working :))

    thanks again,
    BrianG


  • #4
    ozpass
    Closed Accounts Posts: 931 ✭✭✭ozpass


    Glad you got it sorted Brian.


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