Setting up two hard drives

**HFSIS991** · August 24th, 2004, 11:06 PM

Alright, I am new to the network and I wanted some tech support. Now I have an issue with my Compaq computer. It has two 70GB MAXTOR 6L080J4 hard drives hooked up. They are both hooked up correctly because both formerly worked in collaboration with Windows ME. When I reformated a messy configuration and mangled program links to install Windows XP. When I installed it XP set up my C: as a hard drive but the D: as a back up drive. How do I make my second hard drive function as a hard drive and not a backup drive?

**Chuckiechan** · August 24th, 2004, 11:15 PM

Generally, you need to set them both as cable select. By doing so, you will be able to choose HDD0 (master) or HDD1 (slave) to boot from in the bood menu or bios. The booting drive will still be labeled "C" by the operating system.

Each drive will still show up in the "explorer" as a "d" drive when they are both hooked up depending on which one you booted from. You need to put your old "D" at the end of the cable, and your new "C" in the middle.

If you have no mult boot menu, you can change boot order in the bios to
First boot device: Floppy
Second boot device: HDD1
Third boot device: CD rom

Or-

First boot device: Floppy
Second boot device: HDD0
Third boot device: CD rom

I'm not sure if you can have ME and XP on different drives, so I'd wait for other advice on this.

BTW: Welcome to Techimo!

**sechs** · August 25th, 2004, 12:57 AM

"Back up drive?" Where did you see this?

**halo2jak** · August 25th, 2004, 01:22 AM

Do you actually have 2 hard drives in your PC? Cause sometimes what compaq does, (as well as HP) They tend to make a partition to make it seem like you have 2 hard drives. This is the backup partition. It restores your computer just like it was when you bought it. But this may not be the case, and you may really have 2 hard drives installed. If this is the case, you could prolly mess with the jumper on the back of the hard drive and set the one with the good OS you want to boot up as the master, and put the other on Cable Select. I think that's how it works

**HFSIS991** · August 26th, 2004, 01:53 AM

I see it as a back up hardrive in the control panel. I do not believe that the back up drives are my first hard drive. This PC has inside 2 hard drives that i can visually see. How would I add it though, it shows when I try to add new hardware that the device is working properly. Under ME which it had formerly, both hard drives functioned though and that is why i don't know why it wouldnt work under XP

**sechs** · August 29th, 2004, 10:17 PM

The control panel? Harddrives aren't listed in the control panel.

**Valtelino** · August 30th, 2004, 12:40 AM

Originally Posted by halo2jak

If this is the case, you could prolly set the one with the good OS you want to boot up as the master, and put the other on Cable Select. I think that's how it works

If they are both on the same IDE ribbon, you need to set them BOTH as cable select. Then the position on the cable determines which one is master, which ones is slave. Traditionally, the last drive on cable end is master, but I've seen systems with the bios written to reverse this. In other words, in cable select, you need to physically swap the drives around on the cable to change master/slave order.
Other issues:
Sometimes cable select won't detect two drives correctly if you're using the old 40 wire ribbon. Works fine with one, needs an 80 wire ribbon to work with two (master/slave, same cable).
If it's Compaq/Dell/IBM/ Big brand name, you're far more likely to get it to work ok with cable select, than jumpered master/slave, but the rules are different.
A side point: how is a WinMe instal reading 70gb? Default Win9x (95/98/ME) FAT32 partitions are limited to 32gb. Is it possible the drive which ran ME had two partitions, and you're still seeing/using these?

But the simple answer to "making the backup drive a hard drive" (???) is to FORMAT IT! (LOL)

**Chuckiechan** · August 30th, 2004, 12:56 AM

Since you have two physical drives, then are you using one as a back up drive to store back up data?

Example:
I have two HDD's (IDE0 & IDE1) set as cable select on one cable. Both have an operating system (win2K) so if one gets corrupt, I can appoint the other to be "master" and then retreive the data off the bad one.

Is this kind of what you are facing?

In other words, in cable select, you need to physically swap the drives around on the cable to change master/slave order.

Not quite, cable select allows you to designate IDE0 or IDE1 to operated as master (0) or slave (1), this allows dual booting via boot menu or bios, without swapping physical position of the drives. That is what is cool about cable select, the bios settings determine which drive has the "live" operating system.

**Valtelino** · August 30th, 2004, 01:13 AM

Oops. Forgot that option.
Some of the early cable select I worked with didn't give you that choice in bios.
I thought what was cool was, if everything is jumpered C.S. , you can't make the classic newbie HDD upgrade mistake of jumpering both drives to master, and frying the hard drive controller Pcb! (LOL)