Installed 2nd HD, now neither is recognized

[Suzer73]

Hello,

I have a Dell 4400 with a Maxtor 80G HD that I use as my system/boot drive. Last night I installed a Maxtor 200G HD to be used as storage for video (master/slave configuration).

Now, the computer does not recognize either HD in BIOS (I had to boot up from the Windows XP CD.) Even if I disconnect the new drive, the original drive is not detected.

Any advice? Thanks!

[numerouno]

Did you connect the original drive to the same connector tab when you removed the second drive again?

It sounds as if you may not have set the "master" and "slave" settings on the drives correctly. If so, this would be a 10minute job for the local computer shop.

[Suzer73]

Thanks for your response . . .

Yes, I had used the same connector when trying the first drive alone.

Also, I made sure that the jumpers were set to master/slave as per the drive documentation. I later noticed that my computer manual recommends always using "cable select", so I also tried that, as well as trying a new cable, both to no avail.

[Suzer73]

I figured it out this evening - I did not have pin #1 of the IDE cable connector on the correct end of the drive connector.

Thanks again.