Why doesn't my computer recognize my 2nd hard drive?

My original (master) hard drive is a 10.2G Seagate hard drive. I tried to install another hard drive that's a Western Digital 6.4G, but it cannot be detected by my PC. What could possibly be the problem?

This question was answered on February 13, 2001. Much of the information contained herein may have changed since posting.

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Thank you for your question What you need to do is turn off the computer, unplug it, and open the case Make sure that you use safety precautions such as using a static strap to keep yourself grounded

The first thing you need to do is check your cable configuration on both drives Each ribbon cable can support up to two IDE/EIDE devices On the flat data cable you will see a tinted edge, usually red or blue in color This indicates pin 1 on the cable This edge of the cable should be plugged in so that the tinted edge is closest to the jusmper block on the drive This is toward the middle of the drive Aslo check to make sure that the end of the cable plugging into either the motherboard or the paddle card is aligned with pin 1 Also make sure the power plug is plugged in properly.

Reboot your computer to see whether this has fixed your problem.

If not, another cause could be due to your jumper settings You should be able to find the jumper settings in your manuals or you can look on Western Digitals website at www.wdc.com/service/ET/norecco1.htm

Just to note: if you have the two drives on the same ribbon cable, the primary hard drive must be jumpered as the Master device and the second device must be jumpered as the Slave device.

If the two drives are on separate cables, each drive should be jumpered for "Single" or "Neutral" configuration.

Another cause could be from the drives not partitioned or formatted correctly Western Digital has a download of Data Lifeguard Tools if you do not have the original disk The website is: http://www.wdc.com/service/ftp/drives.html#dlgtools

To find jumper settings for your seagate, you can find them at: http://www.seagate.com/support/disc/specs/model_st3.html

I hope this helps your problem Good Luck.

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Posted by Jacqueline of Chandler-Gilbert Community College on February 13, 2001

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