[nobbyburton]

due to a failed drive a few months back, purchased a new 80gb drive, and now have 3 HDD's and a DVD ROM
other day my pc wouldnt boot and was trying to boot from secondary drives, so eventually isolated problem as either the cable connecting the primary master and slave to the motherboard

as can get new hard disk to put by solely plugging it into second IDE port and board

bought new cable today and doesnt fix problem, and have tried using secondary cable which i know works and that doesnt work either in primary slot on the board

what are my options as i dont want to get a new motherboard as far too much hassle

i suppose i can use the cables i have to try and move all the data around to just hard disks
but then i'll still be limited

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hmm, well have u checked the "faulty" IDE port on your motherboard for things like bent pins, any signs of black stuff (i.e. burnt) or anything like that?

if your 100% sure that, that particular slot is busted then i suggest you buy an IDE cable with a "splitter" on it, just bang aload of splitters in where you can and have a shuffle of hard drives in the bays of your case so that they reach each other etc,

my friend had a similar problem but he just got a new motherboard, but b4 he did that he'd done what i said above, has a shuffle of bays, and plugged some IDE splitters in


hope this helps =/

[kiriyama]

hmm, well have u checked the "faulty" IDE port on your motherboard for things like bent pins, any signs of black stuff (i.e. burnt) or anything like that?

if your 100% sure that, that particular slot is busted then i suggest you buy an IDE cable with a "splitter" on it, just bang aload of splitters in where you can and have a shuffle of hard drives in the bays of your case so that they reach each other etc,

my friend had a similar problem but he just got a new motherboard, but b4 he did that he'd done what i said above, has a shuffle of bays, and plugged some IDE splitters in


hope this helps =/

[nobbyburton]

had read on maplins website IDE only supports 2 drives per cable

am i missing something?

[kiriyama]

how many IDE ports do u have on your motherboard?

in mine i have 2 or 4 i think, either way im running 2 dvd roms (1 reader, one writer) and 2 hard drives,

if u have 3 HDDs, and 2 IDE ports (1 being the working one, and the other being the faulty one) then id suggest taking out the DVD rom and replacing it temp. with a HDD so u can move files around =/

thoroughly inspect the suspected "dodgey" port though, if its a bent pin, then it might be repairable, if its burnt then your screwed, worst thing would be to find there is nothin wrong with it visually...

also check your motherboard is properly mounted, although i think one short would short the lot, im just randomly chucking out ideas here...

however, if the problem is the motherboard itself i would highly suggest replacing it now, it will only cause you more trouble in the future

Edited by kiriyama, 13 June 2006 - 11:59 AM.

[kiriyama]

double post sorry,

Edited by kiriyama, 13 June 2006 - 11:59 AM.

[HaraldR]

With 2 IDE ports,

Primary master hard drive is in first ide and located at end of ribbon cable

Secondary ide port should have DVD drive as master

Second hard drive should be attached as slave on either primary master hard drive ribbon cable or
as slave on DVD ribbon

Third hard drive can be slave on secondary position that is left

You can also puchase an ide card to add extra ide ports

the faster hard drive should be master (ie 7200 rpm master 5400 rpm slave)

[nobbyburton]

very weird, tried one last time and went into BIOS to auto detect HDD and even the old cable worked

so it looks like somehow something cause the BIOS to lose its detection of my HDD

all drives now working perfectly!