Can't install second hard drive

[gumboot]

I'm trying to transplant a 30Gb hard drive from one computer to another computer. I want to leave the existing drive in the second computer and use the 30Gb drive as the slave.

I've set the jumpers on both drives correctly, with the 4.5Gb drive as master and the 30Gb drive as slave.

I've got the correct double connector 40-pin ribbon cable and made sure that the slave is connected to the middle connector.

Both drives have Windows XP Pro as the OS, the only difference being that the 30Gb drive is FAT32 and the 4.5Gb drive, NTFS.

When I boot the PC with the transplanted drive, the 30Gb drive does not show in My Computer. It doesn't show up in the BIOS either.

I can't seem to figure out what I'm doing wrong. I've been told that it's possible I may have to format the 30Gb drive for it to be recognised, but I find this hard to believe. Surely this would prevent people copying stuff off failing drives etc?

I only want to go through this rigmarole to copy stuff off the 30Gb drive onto a DVD so I can transfer them over to a third PC, which is brand new. Can't do it directly as the new PC has SATA connections only while the 30Gb drive is IDE.

Thanks for your help.

[rojash]

If it doesn't show in the BIOS then the problem is pretty fundamental, so forget formatting and/or fiddling with Windows.

How old is the BIOS? With some older ones you have to manually tell it to re-detect hard drives after making changes. If the controller and cables are UDMA then you should set the jumpers on both drives to C/S (cable select). If not, then the position of the drive on the cable is irrelevant.

My bet is on manually redetecting the drives.

[dodgyshirt]

If all else fails, simply stick the HDD in a 3.5in enclosure and plug it in to the new PC. This will save having to copy to a DVD too.
http://computers.search.ebay.co.uk/3-5_Hard-Dr ive-Caddies-Enclosures_W0QQfromZR4QQsacatZ9689 4QQsatitleZ3Q2e5QQssPageNameZWLRS

[rojash]

Dodgyshirt's suggestion also has the advantage that once you've copy the files across, you can reformat the drive and use it as a backup device.

[dodgyshirt]

One final thought on the matter and please don't be offended that I am asking, but I assume you provided power to the second HDD with a spare Molex plug.

[gumboot]

Thank you both. Yes, we did power up the second drive with a spare Molex connector dodgyshirt and no offence taken.

It was an old BIOS (one of the older HP Pavilions from the mid ninetees).Oddly, on checking the Pavilion's own drive, there was no cable select option available according to the diagram on the back of the drive. To complicate matters further, the 30Gb drive was a Western Digital Caviar with "Master", "Slave and "Single" but again no cable select.

We went out this afternoon and bought an Akasa HDD drive enclosure from PC World. It cost about �25.

We installed the 30Gb drive in the caddy, installed Akasa drivers etc off the CD and powered it all up after cabling it all together.

The 30Gb drive was there in My Computer with a new drive letter assigned to it. We then copied off what we needed and formatted the 30Gb drive.

It all worked like a dream. I can't get over how simple the solution was to something that's caused me quite a few sleepless nights. The Akasa is always handy if I ever need to back up another drive in the future.

Thank you both very much for you help. It's very much appreciated!

[dodgyshirt]

Thanks for letting us know the end result in such detail.

I'm sure rojash will agree with me when I say that its gratifying to hear that our advice has resulted in a satisfactory conclusion.