a question for the techies on the board

[Ringman]

hey as most know i recently purchesed a new computer after i accidently fried the motherboard on my old one, I have a question for the techs on the board. I pulled the hard drive from the old computer and put it in a working computer so i could get all my files off of it and put them on my new computer.

I cant seem to get the computer that i put the drive in to recgonize(sp?) the old hard drive. Is there some sort of cable that i need to connect my old hard drive to the hard drive thats currently in that computer?


any thoughts and help would be appreciated. :)

[stickycoins]

You need to change the jumper setting on the old hard drive to "slave". There should be a little piece of plastic in a section of pins. Look on the top of the old drive for a diagram that looks like this: [MA][SL][CL]. There will be little dots and squares under them which show you where to move the plastic piece to. It is currently set to master, and you can only have one master drive. Also, make sure you hook the old drive up on the same ribbon cable as the new one. If you have any other questions, feel free to PM me.

[Ringman]

thanks sticky ill try that and let you know how it goes :)

[gbm85]

First make sure both hard drives are plugged in with both an IDE cable and power plug. As stickycoins said, you should have your current (new) hard drive set to Master and the old drive set to Slave. If that doesn't work, try setting both drives to Cable Select (abbreviated on diagrams as CS or CSEL). That way, your mobo will take care of choosing which is master and which is slave.

Good luck!

[Slave to the Phone]

No tech support from me, I want your computer to work.

I just wanted to tell you how flattered I am that you are using something I posted as a sig line.

*jumps up and runs in circles with arms in the air! WOOT!!!*

[Ringman]

I just wanted to tell you how flattered I am that you are using something I posted as a sig line.

*jumps up and runs in circles with arms in the air! WOOT!!!*

no problem, i thought what you said was funny and i needed a new sig anyway:super:

any way i couldnt get that to work, im hopelessly lost. im giving my old computer to one of my co-workers son as he builds and re-builds computers for a living ill ask him to take a look at the drive and see if he can get it working for me. Thanks GBM and Stickey Coins for the help :cool:

[Slave to the Phone]

no problem, i thought what you said was funny and i needed a new sig anyway:super:

*jumps up and runs around in circles again! WOOTWOOT*

any way i couldnt get that to work, im hopelessly lost. im giving my old computer to one of my co-workers son as he builds and re-builds computers for a living ill ask him to take a look at the drive and see if he can get it working for me.

I'm sorry about that. I feel your pain, tho. We have 2 nonworking computers in the back room. We are keeping them until we can find someone to get the data back. We've since learned the importance of backing up everything.

[RedHeadPhoneGirl]

Ringman, if nothing else, take out the new harddrive, hook up the old one and back up all of your files onto a CD or CD and/or a jump drive (flash drive, thumb drive, whatever you want to call it it's about the length of your thumb and you put it in the USB port) While this will be slower than just moving it all over to the new hard drive directly, it will work. you could also try to find an external hard drive that hooks up to your USB port and back everything up on that....

Also, like the others said, make sure your jumpers are correct. Most techs will recommend that if you don't know the difference between master and slave (primary and secondary) hard drives, it's best to put it on cable select (CS, CSEL).... also, when you're booting your system, hit F2 to go into your CMOS setup and make sure the CMOS recognizes the hard drive.... One other thing. Your old hard drive may be IDE, and the new on may be EIDE, meaning they have two different types of cables and you may need to make sure you've got the right number of pins for the new hard drive, as well as making sure the cable is in the correct way. While it is difficult with the new cables to put them in backwards, it is possible. And like GBM said, make sure there is also a connector from the power supply connected to both hard drives.

[Cutenoob]

How old is this new pc?

and How old is the OLD hard drive?

You will have to have this old drive as a slave because XP has a way to not let people take a main drive out and use it as a main drive in other pcs.

so: as said before:

check your cable connex.
Make sure its tight at mobo side and tight at hd end side.
End of ribbon is master
middle of ribbon is slave

jumper the bastards

check bios to see if it will recognize it (before the os does) If so...good.

if all else fails, take the drive to someoen else and see if they can get it as a slave, and grab your data.

Good Luck

cute

[Ringman]

How old is this new pc?

and How old is the OLD hard drive?
<snip>
if all else fails, take the drive to someoen else and see if they can get it as a slave, and grab your data.

Good Luck

cute

1. pc is only a few months old according to the windows info it was manufacutured in may. just bought it the other day. http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=7726026&type=product&id=1140391940047

2. the old hard drive is only 4 or 5 years old.


thanks for all your suggestions guys.:yourock:

[NightWolf]

What they all said. Odd that it wouldn't detect it though. I tend to run Cable Select for all my drives.

Times like these make me happy i have my metal gear box. Having an external HD enclosure makes a world of difference when backin up, restoring, or just moving files from one PC to another.

[chryso]

Well, you will need to connect two things to the old hard drive.
One is a power source. It will be a little four prong thingy with a plastic coating that goes into the hard drive. Since the old hard drive is a few years old it is probably an IDE drive and the other thing that you will need to connect is a ribbon cable. Most ribbon cables come with two connections. Look in the new computer and see what is connecting the new hard drive. If it is a cable that is flat and about 2 inches wide then you have a ribbon cable already and you can hook the old hard drive up to an empty connector on that cable. If the cable is the flat kind like I mentioned but only has one connector on it then you should be able to pull a cable out of your old comp to replace that one. If your new computer has a SATA hard drive you may need some kind of adapter to connect the old drive. Here is a link for a USB to IDE adapter, http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?InvtId=USB2IDE-N&cm_ven=Froogle&cm_cat=Shopping&cm_ite=total

[Ringman]

hey every one thanks for the help and suggestions. I had my co-workers son look at the old computer, and he called me just a a little bit ago and said that he can read the harddrive on another computer which is good, but he also said he thinks that its not the motherboard that fried but the power supply. he said that nothing is getting juice at all. He is going to swap out the power supply with another from a parts computer and see if all is well.

If it is just the power unit I will be rasing a little h*** with best buy to get refunded for the diagnostics charge of $70 and the outragous shipping and labor fee of $30 they charged me to pick up my computer. as I wasnt informed of that fee untill i went to pick it up.

[RedHeadPhoneGirl]

I would raise holly h*** with any store that did a screwy diagnostics, telling you it was the mobo thus causing you to buy a new computer (which btw you can just buy the motherboard :) ) when it was actually the power supply........