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General discussion

Installed slave hardrive, but now can't find cd-rom drive

Jan 19, 2005 9:43PM PST

Installed slave hardrive, but now can't find cd-rom drive

Hi I am a newbie and don?t understand a lot of the computer jargon, but I can follow instruction so please help.

I took my old hardrive out of my old computer and changed the jumper to slave using tweezers, I connected my old hardrive into my new computer by connecting a grey ribbon cable socket which was connected to the cable to my exsisting hardrive and I also connect a socket which had 2 yellow wires 2 red and 4 back (I think.)

Once I turned on my computer windows xp desktop loaded up as usual, and in the bottom right hand corner of the screen a little box said new hardware/hardrive dettected/added (something like that)

I click on D drive in my computer to find that my old hardrive had been installed in their automatically, but d drive is where I used to play cd?s or dvd?s and I can?t play them now. When I put in a cd or dvd my computer doesn?t even detect/find it! When I click on D drive all my old folders and documents from my old hardrive are on it!

Please help me with a simple step by step guide -Thanks

Discussion is locked

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Try this...
Jan 19, 2005 10:17PM PST

Before the new system saw the old HD, the CD *was* the D drive as you noticed. Upon installing the old HD into system it became the D drive as devices on that primary cable take presense over the secondary cable.

What has happen when you used the old system as is, the CD drive upon installing any programs were routed to D location. Now, when you launch those pgms. they look for D:\somefolder\anypgm but its wrong now. You need to edit if possible under the "properties" by right clicking the icon of pgm. and change D to E(most likely) in order to continue proper use. Otherwise, re-install pgms., BUT! point to the same old folder now found on E. Of course back-up any data you like before doing this. I use drive E as the most likelt candidate where these old pgms. are. Click on "My Computer" will display all storage devices present. Make sense?

good luck -----Willy

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If Willy's solution doesn't work.
Jan 20, 2005 4:50AM PST

Although it probably will. If not, consider that you might have dislodged the the Secondary IDE cable (the other grey thing) when working with the Primary one.
Good luck. chuck

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RE:Installed slave hardrive, but now can't find cd-rom drive
Jan 20, 2005 1:07PM PST

Reboot and go into setup and verify primary and slave drives. Set each to auto detect and then verify each drive. Your cd drive will be there too. Be sure it is set to auto detect and then verify it, then reboot. If this does not work take your old drive out and set the jumpers to cs = cable select. Put it back in and follow the previous instructions again.

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Setting up IDE Drives
Jan 20, 2005 9:23PM PST

Hello.

Make sure your BIOS is set to auto detect drives.

Correct connection of IDE & Power cables is critical though hard to get wrong even if you're a newbie. Connect the Hard drives as follows:

HDD1 (c:\) connect to the first plug on IDE1 cable and set jumpers on drive to "master"

HDD2 (d:\) connect to the second plug on IDE1 cable and set jumpers on drive to "slave"

CD-ROM (e:\) connect to end of IDE2 Cable and set jumpers on drive to "master"

Finally make sure the power cables are plugged in, I am an experienced IT Technician but i have been known to overlook this on an "off-day".

This will ensure that the drives are connected correctly.

Program Configuration:
--------------------------------

If the change of drive letter is causing problems in some programs and you are using windows 2000 or XP you can change drive letters by using the "Disk Management" facility.
(Start - Settings - Control Panel - Administrative Tools - Computer Management)

Under the "Storage" Category within "Computer Management" there is a section called "Disk Management" click this and you will see the configuration of all the drives on your system.

You want to look at the bottom right panel and right-click on the grey area where the type of drive is displayed (e.g. Disk 0 or CD-ROM 0).
Once you right click a menu will appear with the option to "Change Drive Letter and Paths"
In the window which appears click the change button and select a new drive letter for that drive.

HDD 1 (D:\) change to F
CD-ROM 0 (E:\) change to D
HDD 1 (F:\) change to E

this will swap the CD and second HDD drive letters so that D becomes E and E becomes D. This should solve any problems in programs with the CD Letter embedded in config files/registry etc. without you needing to go into each programs settings and messing around in the registry.

Hope this helps

Alan

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