Two different HD types...

D

DAC

New Member
Hello,

I recently bought a new computer, it came with a WDC WD2500JD-22HBB0 hard drive. My old hard drive is Maxtor 5T040H4. I am not that familiar with HD terminology so I'll call the maxtor the old-style connections (non-serial ATA drive, four pin power source, pins) and the WD the new style connections (serial ATA drive?? skinny red power cable and no pins).

When I opened up the case to put the old drive in to transfer the contents to the new 250MB HD, I noticed there was no way to hook it up. Someone told me I needed an ATA Adapter. I bought an Adaptec ASH-1233 and installed the drives properly (e.g.- Jumper settings correct, etc.).

The ATA Adapter recognizes the Maxtor, but when it boots it does not find the operating system on it.

When I disconnect the adapter I can boot normally with my 250MB HD (new drive that came with the computer), but when booting with this drive it doesn't recognize the old one.

All I want to do is hook up the Maxtor, transfer the contents to the 250MB and discard the old drive. It is becoming a very big hassle.

Any help would be appreciated... Thanks
 
Sound like a jumper setting problem. Make sure the old harddrive with windows on it is set to master and the new blank harddrive set to slave. Also you will need to partition and format the new harddrive most likly before windows will recoignize it but we worry about that once you can get to windows with the new harddrive in.
 
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The Maxtor has no operating system, is the master, and is connected to the Primary IDE Connector on the ATA Card (in a 32-bit PCI expansion slot, as opposed to 64-bit, if this matters). I have another drive, that I used as the boot drive in my old system. The Maxtor was just a data drive. The 250MB drive that came with my new system already has WinXP on it, and works well.

I even tried connecting the two old drives into my new system in the same configuration as they were in my old system and still no dice.

If it was a jumper problem, would the ATA controller even recognize the drive? Since it does recognize the drive in my new system, dosen't this imply that the jumpers are correct?

There appears to be some incompatiblity with the old style drives and the new style drives operating together in newer systems. This seems unlikely; therefore it must be the dreaded operator error...
 
I noticed there was no way to hook it up. Someone told me I needed an ATA Adapter. I bought an Adaptec ASH-1233 and installed the drives properly (e.g.- Jumper settings correct, etc.).
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How many drives do you have installed now? On what motherboard? Almost every board in existence supports 4 PATA drives

The ATA Adapter recognizes the Maxtor, but when it boots it does not find the operating system on it.
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Are you sure its looking on the Maxtor for boot info? (i.e., boot order)

When I disconnect the adapter I can boot normally with my 250MB HD (new drive that came with the computer), but when booting with this drive it doesn't recognize the old one.
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Sounds like the mobo has the SATA drive as the only boot HDD

If it was a jumper problem, would the ATA controller even recognize the drive?
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Sometimes. However since you're dealing between PATA and SATA drives you dont need to to worry about jumpers between those ... you do need to worry about jumpers between the PATA drives if they share the same cable though (i.e., your CD drives)
 
I finally solved the problem and it was quite simple in retrospect.

I unplugged my DVD Slave Drive and connected my PATA Maxtor HDD to the Slave part of the cable. Then I copied all the data to my new SATA 250MB HDD, discarded the Maxtor and reconnected my DVD.

Simple :rolleyes:

Strangely, I only have one connection on the motherboard for PATA. Every motherboard I've owned previously has had at least two of theses connections. This is what threw me off...
 
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Strangely, I only have one connection on the motherboard for PATA. Every motherboard I've owned previously has had at least two of theses connections. This is what threw me off...
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Yeah some of them motherboards can be retarded.... :D
 
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