Help putting in a cd rw drive and an extra hard drive

T

tmcksmith

New Member
Okay, so here's the deal. I was fooling around with the inside of my computer a while ago and I unplugged the cd rom drive (the big thick white wire and the 4 little wires that are together), and as i plugged them back in some of the spokes bent so I couldn't plug it back in at all. Today I took out the CDRW drive, got some tweezers and bent them back into place, and it seemed to fit in fine this time. I also had an extra 20 GIG hard drive laying around that I added. However, when I turn on my computer it doesn't recognize either of these. I realize the CDRW may just be plain messed up due to the semi-bent spokes, but I don't understand why the hard drive isn't being recognized. I tried looking up some instruction guides online. To be honest, I really dont know what 'setting the drive to Primary/Slave, etc.' means. All of the guides I've read says to do that BEFORE turning on your computer, which I dont get. Here's how the CDRW & the extra hard drive are connected -

They're both in the top,
Theres 1 long THICK white wire going up to the top, and 1 just like it branching from it at the top. There's also two big 4 pronged chords at the top labled 'P4' and 'P5'. I assume these are power chords? not really sure. Anyway, I plugged in the end of the white chord into the CDRW drive, and one of the power chords along with that. I then plugged in the branching off white chord into the extra hard drive, and one of the power chords along with that. Is that all I have to do? What's the problem? Why isnt my computer recognizing these? I even went into setup before Windows booted up and under the 'drives' part all it can find is the original C:, the other ones are set to 'Auto'. Thanks for the help
 
(the big thick white wire and the 4 little wires that are together), and as I plugged them back in some of the spokes bent so I couldn't plug it back in at all.
Click to expand...
This cable isnt required... it's there for legacy purposes :)

I also had an extra 20 GIG hard drive laying around that I added. However, when I turn on my computer it doesn't recognize either of these.
Click to expand...
Seems like a master/master or slave/slave conflict :) Change the jumpers on one of the drives and you should be fine :)
 
thanks for the response

...but how do i 'change the jumpers'? i'm assuming i should do this on the extra hard drive, considering that the cd rw was already working in my computer at one time. i'm not even sure what 'changing the jumpers' means, or how i go about doing that.


also, what do you mean that wire isnt required? i'm talking about the 40-pronged (i think) think white 'wire' (very wide, but about as thin as a few peices of paper, maybe called a ribbon wire?)
 
On the back of the drive probalbly in between the power cable(big 4 pronged one) and the IDE cable (40 pronged one) there some little black rectangular thing(a jumper) on some prongs. On my drive you can set it horizontal on the last two right prongs on the top row and it will be set to cable select which means depending on where its connected on the ide cable it will set it to either master or slave.
I would try this on the harddrive it wont hurt or just go to the manufacturers website and find the documaentation on you hard drive to see how the jumper should be set.
 
okay so i just unplugged the extra hard drive altogether and my computer is still not recognizing the cd rw drive. what do you think could be the problem? especially since you said the 40 pronged wide wire doesnt matter
 
40 pronged wire matters put it back in he was taliking about the 4 wire one but i dont think you have that one
 
okay good news.

i changed the jumpers on my extra hard drive, and then it read both the cdrw AND the extra hard drive! so the cd rw drive is working fine, and when i started up windows it said 'new hardware found - maxtor blah blah blah' (maxtor is the name of the hard drive). but it doesnt have it as one of the drives. how do i configure it to make it a drive?

also, where should i be putting this hard drive. right now it's kind of just 'sitting' on top of my floppy drive. my computer is set up so it's a cd rom drive, then below there was a gap, and then came the floppy disc drive. so i just kinda 'set' the extra hard drive in that gap. is that okay? it doesnt *really* move around, because the wires that it's plugged into are pretty firm into place . but when i took out the extra hard drive at first, it was like burning hot. what's up with that? and it wasnt even in use...

is that a bad place to put it? do i need some kind of special case so it will snap into place in that extra 'gap'? thanks
 
I didnt say the 40pin one doesnt matter. I noted that the 4 prong one doesnt.
As for heat, hdds, sprinning at 7200rpm+ will generate a lot of heat; the more airflow you have on the drives, the better off you are :)
 
Well once you've got the drive detected by BIOS, you're gonna need to add partitions (either via the oldschool FDISK or something like Partition Magic). THen simply format the drive and you're good to go :)
 
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