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Id lke to install new HD plz

Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
in General Chat
Hoe can I do this, iv connected all the right cables ect to the drive and screwd everything in place, but I get messages saying searching boot from IDE.not found searching boot from A:\.not found and same for D and C drives ect.
I have the boot disk in but cant get into dos either/.

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    Dr PirateDr Pirate Posts: 8,303 Legendary Poster
    did you set the jumpers on the drive to slave? (I presume you want to install a 2nd Hard Drive)
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    yeha youneed to the jumper from master to slave, the pins to change it to at on the label in which it comes from, the jumper is a white thing on the end of the HD!!
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    You're trying to boot from the drive you just installed?
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    You will need to format the new drive and install an operating system on it..thats my suggestion anyway.
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Well, assuming you're using the standard IDE interface that has been around for the last billion years, and not that new-fangled-SATA thingymabob, then it's pretty easy.

    You have one controller on your motherboard. It is split into two channels. Each channel has a master and slave. Typically, hard drives go on the first channel, and CD-ROMs go on the second. The primary hard drive(most likely the one already in your PC) should be set to master on the first channel - unless you want to mess around with somewhat funky booting methods. If the spare slot on your controller is for the first channel, then set the jumper on the new drive to slave. If your CDROM is the primary slave, and the second channel is empty, then set the new drive to master.

    Any self-respecting, semi-modern computer should detect the arrival of a new drive. If not, then go into your BIOS and configure it manually.

    Finally, go ahead and boot your OS. What to do from here on varies from OS to OS, and revision to revision. Look for a disk manager, partition editor, or something along those lines. Still using WinME, Win98/SE, or 95? Dig out your boot floppies and read about fdisk.

    :)

    Oh, and just a little advice that is never mentioned - like so many pieces of modern equipment, if something is going to fail it will either fail very quickly in its life, or very late on. Its worth refraining from putting anything that cannot be readily replaced on your old drive and not your new one, at least for a few days.

    Of course, there will be a mob along anytime now to tell me that they've never seen a hard drive fail in their fifty billion years of computing :). I'm just talking from my experience of working on various systems over the years. More recently, I've got two hard drives sitting here that have been on for the best part of four years with minimal power cycling - I think one of them has only had a dozen cold boots in that time. Nothing wrong with either of them :).

    Anyway, I'm off topic. Just for a change...
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    hond on a sec,way too far ahead here..
    I cant even install the new OS on the new drive because the stupid win xp boot disc that I made from the other pc wont work, it says " boot disk failure" or somthing along those lines
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    just need to use an actual winxp disc to install, not a boot disc
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I have a win me disk but that doesnt work either, nothing is working at all, it says searching floppy...not found
    IDE...not found
    cd...not found ect.
    can I install windows using my other runnign oc like swap the hds or somthing
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    Teh_GerbilTeh_Gerbil Posts: 13,332 Born on Earth, Raised by The Mix
    Right. Is the BIOS set to auto detect? Should be anyway. Unlikley its not.

    I have this, I fix PC's for cash so its quite common tbh. I usually unplug the lot and start from scratch. :D So do so. Check all Jumpers. Master and slave combo's only. Don't use cable select ever, it is stupid and buggers up. Make sure master is on the first drive and slave on the second on the cable anyway. Makes life alot easier. So, my system has:

    ####--| - Master Optical drive
    ####--| - Slave Optical drive
    |
    Then the cable to motherboard.


    ####--| - Master Harddrive
    ####--| - Slave harddrive
    |
    Then the cable to motherboard.

    As for Floppy Drive, check the wire is the correct way round. I've done it before, put it in upside down, and wondered why it was buggered. If the light stays on all the time, it is a sign usually.

    If none of this works, erm... im a tad stuck for now. Might think of something later and post it. And yes, new equipment sometimes fails fast. Happened to me before, bloody shit. It used to last ages, I have hard disks over a decade old that still work. Bloody cheap import stuff... *muble grumble*

    Can you tell us anymore about it? What your BIOS is (Award, etc)? What you running? One HDD, or two?
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