Help setting up a second hard drive.

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Is your DVD drive SATA? If so, plug it in the port used by the DVD drive for testing. Perhaps you have a bad sata port on your system?

Originally Posted By: demarpaint
Originally Posted By: javacontour
If you have a SATA DVD drive, try "borrowing" the port for that drive to see if you can see two HDs. I don't see where you tried this.

Does the drive spin up?

Have you tried finding new hardware? (I don't think you need to do this, but then again, we are talking windows, right?)

Do you need to have your BIOS discover the drive?


The drive spins up. Windows doesn't see any new hardware. When I go into the BIOS the drive doesn't appear there either. This is a unique problem anything I Google it seems anyone with a problem can locate the drive, I can't locate it.

If pulling the battery on the mother board doesn't work, I'll make it an external drive and call it a day I think.
 
One other thing I thought of, you might plug the DVD drive in the slot you are trying for your hard drive while you plug the 2nd drive in the slot for the DVD drive.

How is the SATA port set up? Are both ports you are using for disks set the same way in BIOS
 
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Is the port on the motherboard a different color?
Sometimes there are secondary SATA controllers and that could be a reason you're not seeing it in the BIOS. (They have their own BIOS) If the SATA controller driver is not installed in Windows you won't see the drive at all, anywhere.
 
Check to see if bios has raid settings, if it does check to see if it's set to raid or not, turn off raid if you want the drives to show up separately.
 
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Thanks for the replies sorry for the delay, busy day today.

My DVD drive is not a SATA drive. It is an old DELL 3100 which I use a lot more than my new Laptop computer.

No point in posting a screen shot of Disk Management, the drive doesn't appear.

Originally Posted By: SLCraig
Is the port on the motherboard a different color?
Sometimes there are secondary SATA controllers and that could be a reason you're not seeing it in the BIOS. (They have their own BIOS) If the SATA controller driver is not installed in Windows you won't see the drive at all, anywhere.
Not that I'm aware of I'll have to look again.
 
Is the SATA controller enabled in the BIOS? (didn't see if this was covered in this thread, so I apologize if it is)
 
Originally Posted By: OVERK1LL
Is the SATA controller enabled in the BIOS? (didn't see if this was covered in this thread, so I apologize if it is)


At this point I'm not sure. How would I check?
 
Originally Posted By: demarpaint
Originally Posted By: OVERK1LL
Is the SATA controller enabled in the BIOS? (didn't see if this was covered in this thread, so I apologize if it is)


At this point I'm not sure. How would I check?


Go into the BIOS and check to see if the controller is set to IDE only or IDE/SATA. There may also be a separate SATA section depending on whether the SATA controller is part of your southbridge or a standalone controller.
 
Here's what I see in the Bios.
Drive 0 SATA-0 On

Drive 1 SATA-2 On or off it makes no difference. I see this with the second hard drive connected or disconnected.

Drive 2 PATA-0
Drive 3 PATA-1

I can't find anything that says controller

RAID Autodetect/ATA
 
Originally Posted By: OVERK1LL
OK, can you post a picture of the connectors on the board and the inside of your case?


My wife is away with her sister and has the digital camera. I sent you a PM to the PDF of the owners manual if that would help any.
 
Dell bios ? Turn all sata drives (0 and 1) to ON, make sure the drive you want to boot is on sata 0, Put jumpers on extra drive to "Cable Select" and put on sata 1.

Do a hard boot and check management. It should show up in there.
 
Originally Posted By: PostalBound
Dell bios ? Turn all sata drives (0 and 1) to ON, make sure the drive you want to boot is on sata 0, Put jumpers on extra drive to "Cable Select" and put on sata 1.

Do a hard boot and check management. It should show up in there.


Thanks, I'll give it a shot. My only issue is I don't have jumpers. I'll try and get my hands on it.
 
Originally Posted By: demarpaint
Originally Posted By: PostalBound
Dell bios ? Turn all sata drives (0 and 1) to ON, make sure the drive you want to boot is on sata 0, Put jumpers on extra drive to "Cable Select" and put on sata 1.

Do a hard boot and check management. It should show up in there.


Thanks, I'll give it a shot. My only issue is I don't have jumpers. I'll try and get my hands on it.


SATA drives traditionally don't have jumpers. They don't have master/slave/cable select roles because they each have their own dedicated cable.

That being said, I've seen a few SATA drives with jumpers to set the speed of the interface (SATA150, SATA300, SATA600) but this shouldn't be relevant to your situation.
 
If this is a Dimension 3100, this should be pretty straightforward. That motherboard only has two SATA ports and the sole power lead has two SATA plugs so wiring it up couldn't be any simpler. Just make sure the 2nd SATA cable you're using is good. And don't mess with the drive's jumpers. That's only to fix compatibility issues between had drives and the controllers they are connected to. If it worked previously in this machine, there's nothing to tweak.

Try setting SATA mode to Legacy. You're already running XP on a drive in ATA mode so give it a try. Can't hurt and it might fix your problem.
 
OVERK1LL helped shed some light via PM. Thanks again!

I need a SATA data cable, and I should be GTG. If I finish my brake/caliper job tomorrow I'll get one.

Thanks for all the replies.
 
Originally Posted By: yonyon
Wait, so PM is like 2x4 right?


?

I might not be out of the woods yet... lol
 
Originally Posted By: Rand
sounds like your second bay sata cable isnt plugged into the motherboard?

does your new hdd work plugged into that one?

if no its an issue with that cable or connection.



thats where I was going when I posted this a few days ago... missing/ disconnected cable.
 
Originally Posted By: demarpaint
I need a SATA data cable, and I should be GTG.

So... what were you trying to use if not a SATA cable?
 
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