hard disk problem

[Mellow-]

I have an old PC with loads of files on it, but when I tried to plug the old hard disk into my new XP PC it tried to boot from the old disk and not the original? (i'm trying to slave the old hard disk basically just while I can pull the files from it)

I tried looking in the boot menu of the BIOS but it didn't even list the XP disk, just the old win9x disk ... what am I doing wrong?

 

[Quige]

Have you checked the jumpers for master/slave on the hdd?

If it was the main disk in an old PC it is probably set to master. You probably want to set it to slave using the jumpers, and the other drive to master if they're sharing an IDE controller.

Newer drives might well be set to CS or Cable Select, and I'm not sure if they'll like being on the same cable as something that is explicitly set to master.

Also make sure the newer drive is at the end of the IDE cable - especially if set to Cable Select.

 

[vofflujarnid]

Might have to do something with the old hard disk having a different boot sector. I think you can fix that with Windows Manual repair on the Windows CD.

 

[kameleon]

and you also cant have two c drives

 

[Xavier]

easiest thing to do is plug it into your secondary IDE controller if you're just copying files off, it will also speed up the file transfer no end.

Xav

 

[Mellow-]

So if I plug the old disk into the second connector on the first ribbon cable and make sure the jumpers on the old disk are set to slave, it should recognise the drive? Would it then change the drive letter to the next available one automatically?

 

[Quige]

Originally posted by Mellow-
So if I plug the old disk into the second connector on the first ribbon cable and make sure the jumpers on the old disk are set to slave, it should recognise the drive? Would it then change the drive letter to the next available one automatically?

Yes, & it would put it somewhere automatically so I wouldn't worry.

But it might be simpler to do what Xavier said and temporarily unhook your CD/DVD drive and put it on the secondary IDE controller as a master.

 

[Xavier]

you have at least two IDE connectors on your motherboard - somestimes more if you have onboard raid, but generally the first two represent your primary and secondary channels of your parallel IDE controler

both of which can support two devices on a single cable, 4 in total.

The device furthest along the wire (according to the PATA spec) should be your master and the one on the middle a slave. If you're using old UDMA33(40-conductor) cabling this isn't so stringent however, but you do lose the speed enhancements associated with the later standards.

of the two channels, the harddisc containing your OS should be master on your primary (1st) IDE channel, check the board markings or manual to determine which is which.

if all you're looking to do is copy files from the old harddisc, plug it into your secondary IDE channel with no other drives attached to the same IDE cable, boot into windows and shift your old files off, once you're done re-wire things as they were.

If you want to keep the drive in your PC let us know how how many IDE drives you have in total (CDRom and harddisc), chances are you'll have one harddisc and one atapi-class device (CD/DVD, maybe a writer), primary master and secondary master respectively, in which case you can just change the jumper on the drive from 'MA' to 'SL' or 'Master->Slave' depending on the manufacturer and connect it to either controller, wire-length permitting.

Xav

 

[Mellow-]

A = Floppy Disk
C = Local Disk
D = DVD Drive
E = CD-RW Drive
F = CD Drive

Drives D and F are the same one, but XP has seperated them.

 

[Xavier]

separated them? that's very odd :|

 

[Mellow-]

OK, how about if I want to network them? Will a crossover cable plugged into both network cards connect them sufficiently to copy files?

 

[Quige]

Originally posted by Mellow-
OK, how about if I want to network them? Will a crossover cable plugged into both network cards connect them sufficiently to copy files?

Should do as long as both cards are installed properly in Windows and have a common IP and subnet set. 192.168.0.1 & 192.168.0.2 would do it with a subnet set to 255.255.255.0

I guess you might run into problems if you've enabled any sort of file & share security on the XP system - in this case make sure you log onto the win9x PC with a user account and password that exists on the XP box.