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I need some computer tech help


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I can't seem to get my two hard drives to coexist

I was getting an error on my master drive (NTLDR is missing) or some shit, so i took the slave, put a fresh install of Windows on it, and dropped the other drive to the slave.

I can't get them to both show up though. When I have them both hooked up, only the master shows, when I unplug the master, the slave shows up (in BIOS)

I took the slave out and put it in my external casing, and it worked fine, I deleted all the windows files off it as well, then tried it back in my desktop, and still the same thing.

the jumpers are set corrected, and I simply cannot figure it out.

any suggestions?

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Did you try setting the jumper to cable select? Or how about on the one you're getting the NTLDR error on, boot into the Windows Recovery console using your install disk and run fixboot and fixmbr from the ensuing DOS prompt.

did all of that, and tried the jumpers with cable select. no go

IDE? SATA? have you tried cable select? are you sure the 2 drives are enabled in the BIOS? can you see the 2 drives in the BIOS when they are plugged at the same time?

if it's IDE, are you sure they are plugged in the right order?

It could be so many things.

tried cable select. the master shows up in BIOS when both are plugged in, the slave does not. When the master is unplugged, the slave will show up in BIOS. cannot get them both to. IDE, and yes, in correct order.

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You probably need to go the cable select route. If you had the original drive showing in windows when it was used as an external, you could of copied ntldr from you fresh windows install to the original and you would of most likeley got your original drive booting again.

<3 Erik

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do you need to tweak a setting on the master that will allow you to have a slave drive? just a guess, since it won't recognize you're other drive when they are both plugged in.

If so, I have no idea how to do this.

yah do you have a really old motherboard that doesn't support two at once? i dunno maybe try updating your BIOS. otherwise i can't think of anything. you seem to be doing everything right.

nope, I had both these drives hooked up together before I put the fresh install of Windows on it.

IDE?

Try using different connectors: put drive 1 on the primary and drive 2 on the secondary, see what happens.

Play around with the dvd/cd player as well: trying connecting the drives without the cd/dvd...

they are 'Ultra ATA" which I believe is along the same lines as IDE?

and what do you mean about playing around with the CD drives, just disconnect them and see what happens?

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Yes, the above means he wants you to disconnect your CD/DVD/whatever optical drive you have. Will that do anything? Who knows...

Like stated above, your MB might be old/the BIOS out of date. However, it would have to be REALLY OLD for it not to be able to handle two drives.

Second, here's what I've done in the past (to do this, you need a bootable copy of Windows):

Format both drives in DOS. Full f-disk

1. Set the jumper on your boot drive to 'master'

2. Set the jumper on your slave drive to 'cable select' or 'auto' or whatever they call the option now. Can't remember it's been so long.

3. Make sure your BIOS is set to boot from the CD-ROM/optical drive when starting up

4. Insert your bootable copy of Windows and follow the directions to install to your master/boot hard-drive

*Another way: pull out the slave/cable select drive until you've set up the boot/master drive with Windows. Power down, install the slave drive, and boot up and see if it recognizes the drive.

All else fails: Google!

Good luck bro.

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it can definitely handle two drives, as it had two properly working 3 days ago.

as for formatting both drives, I can't lose everything that's on the slave, so i need a option that doesn't include formatting it

unless there is a [free] storage site that i can temporarily upload about 150gb, haha

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also, i figured i'd try another route that in my mind, should have worked.

since the drive i'm trying to use as a slave worked fine in my external casing, tried putting the external drive in my desktop, and run the slave through the external casing, and move everything over, so i don't lose anything important..

but when i did that, both drives were detected in bios, but when i loaded windows, it gets to the loading screen (with the blue bar going across) and then the screen goes blank right after and doesn't load.

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lastwordspoken, you have 2 IDE controllers on most motherboards. Each of those controllers have the capacity to hold 2 devices

Usually people do Primary with 2 hard drives, and secondary with the cd/dvd.

You should try plugging Hard Drive 1 on the Primary channel as MASTER

And plugging Hard Drive 2 on the Secondary channel as MASTER

remove all CD/DVD drives and tell us what you see in a) the bios, B) when booting to windows

If this works fine, try adding a CD-ROM drive tot he Primary channel as SLAVE and tell us if you see it. If that works, add a 2nd CD/DVD-ROM drive to the secondary channel as SLAVE.

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hooking the 2nd hard drive up to the cable for the CD/DVD drive didn't produce any results, only the master hard drive showed up in Bios, nothing for the secondary master or anything.

and Windows wouldn't load, got through the Windows loading screen and restarted itself.

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