"Installing two drives" question - what next?
 

I just passed the A+ Core Hardware test, and there's one question
from the test that I'd like to throw out to the collective wisdom
of this group.

I'd like to give the question as best I recall it, but then wait
for some discussion from the collective wisdom here before posting
the test's possible answers. It's a "troubleshooting, what to do
next" question, and the point of my asking is that I don't think
any of their possible answers were reasonable "next steps".

As best I recall, the question went about like

"You have just installed two hard drives in a computer, on the
primary controller. The CMOS doesn't recognize either drive. You
swap the drives and connectors with each other. The CMOS still
doesn't recognize either drive. Assuming the jumpers and
connectors were configured correctly, what's the next step?"

There was no information about what kind of drives they were, or
where they came from (e.g., brand-new, pulled from a working
computer, found in the bottom of a box of old broken parts).

I'll be interested in seeing how people would proceed from here.

Jim

Re: "Installing two drives" question - what next?
 

> I'll be interested in seeing how people would proceed from here.

Check if the BIOS is set to AUTO for that drive channel.

-John O

Re: "Installing two drives" question - what next?
 

On Mon, 01 Aug 2005 12:25:54 -0500, Jim <none@example.com> wrote:

>I just passed the A+ Core Hardware test, and there's one question
>from the test that I'd like to throw out to the collective wisdom
>of this group.
>
>I'd like to give the question as best I recall it, but then wait
>for some discussion from the collective wisdom here before posting
>the test's possible answers. It's a "troubleshooting, what to do
>next" question, and the point of my asking is that I don't think
>any of their possible answers were reasonable "next steps".
>
>As best I recall, the question went about like
>
>"You have just installed two hard drives in a computer, on the
>primary controller. The CMOS doesn't recognize either drive. You
>swap the drives and connectors with each other. The CMOS still
>doesn't recognize either drive. Assuming the jumpers and
>connectors were configured correctly, what's the next step?"
>
>There was no information about what kind of drives they were, or
>where they came from (e.g., brand-new, pulled from a working
>computer, found in the bottom of a box of old broken parts).
>
>I'll be interested in seeing how people would proceed from here.

- Connect them one by one (to verify that both each drive and the
controler are functional)
- Verify that your motherboard is recent enough to support the
current drives.
- Reset the bios parameters and try again
- Connect one of the drives to the secondary controller
(sometimes 2 different drives keep causing problems)

Valid options that are excluded if you accurately produced the
original question:
- Assuming it's ATA: visually inspect the connector area.
(a connector mounted upsite down shows this symptom :-)
- Assuming it's ATA: visually inspect the cables. (I've come
across cables that had been 'modified')

Very curious to Comptia's suggestions :-)

By the way: congratulations!
--
Kind regards,
Gerard Bok

Re: "Installing two drives" question - what next?
 

> - Connect them one by one (to verify that both each drive and the
> controler are functional)

LOL, that step falls in between the two steps stated in the question, if I
were doing this. But since they didn't do it, it must be done.

Re: "Installing two drives" question - what next?
 

Jim wrote:

> I just passed the A+ Core Hardware test, and there's one question
> from the test that I'd like to throw out to the collective wisdom
> of this group.
>
> I'd like to give the question as best I recall it, but then wait
> for some discussion from the collective wisdom here before posting
> the test's possible answers. It's a "troubleshooting, what to do
> next" question, and the point of my asking is that I don't think
> any of their possible answers were reasonable "next steps".
>
> As best I recall, the question went about like
>
> "You have just installed two hard drives in a computer, on the
> primary controller. The CMOS doesn't recognize either drive. You
> swap the drives and connectors with each other. The CMOS still
> doesn't recognize either drive. Assuming the jumpers and
> connectors were configured correctly, what's the next step?"
>
> There was no information about what kind of drives they were, or
> where they came from (e.g., brand-new, pulled from a working
> computer, found in the bottom of a box of old broken parts).
>
> I'll be interested in seeing how people would proceed from here.
>
> Jim
You would have to run FDISK on both drives, making sure that, when you
do that, FDISK is correctly told, which will be Primary and, which is,
Secondary.

To get to FDISK, you would have to boot from a disk that has both, the
boot programs and, FDISK on it.

After FDISK, you would have to use 'FORMAT' to make both drives fully
recognizable.

Christopher

Re: "Installing two drives" question - what next?
 

On , Christopher Range <chrisrange@charter.net> wrote:

>
>NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 03 Aug 2005 01:27:14 MST
>Date: Wed, 03 Aug 2005 03:25:39 -0500
>Xref: uni-berlin.de alt.certification.a-plus:82942
>
>Jim wrote:
>
>> I just passed the A+ Core Hardware test, and there's one question
>> from the test that I'd like to throw out to the collective wisdom
>> of this group.
>>
>> I'd like to give the question as best I recall it, but then wait
>> for some discussion from the collective wisdom here before posting
>> the test's possible answers. It's a "troubleshooting, what to do
>> next" question, and the point of my asking is that I don't think
>> any of their possible answers were reasonable "next steps".
>>
>> As best I recall, the question went about like
>>
>> "You have just installed two hard drives in a computer, on the
>> primary controller. The CMOS doesn't recognize either drive. You
>> swap the drives and connectors with each other. The CMOS still
>> doesn't recognize either drive. Assuming the jumpers and
>> connectors were configured correctly, what's the next step?"
>>
>> There was no information about what kind of drives they were, or
>> where they came from (e.g., brand-new, pulled from a working
>> computer, found in the bottom of a box of old broken parts).
>>
>> I'll be interested in seeing how people would proceed from here.
>>
>> Jim
>You would have to run FDISK on both drives,

No. The question --as presented here-- tells you that neither of
the drives is recognized by the BIOS.

You cannot run FDISK or FORMAT on a drive that doesn't exist :-)

(But beware: Windows can access --and use-- drives that are not
recognized by BIOS. But you cannot boot from such a drive.)

--
Kind regards,
Gerard Bok

Re: "Installing two drives" question - what next?
 

> You would have to run FDISK on both drives,

Bzzzzt. Wrong answer.

If the BIOS won't recognize the drives, neither will FDISK. Your suggestion
might come into play later, however, it's not "The Next Step" in this
scenario.

-John O

Re: "Installing two drives" question - what next?
 

>
> Next step - look for a cylinder limitation jumper on each of the drives.
>

Edjumacate me on this one....some drives have such a jumper? What type of
drive has this?

-John O

Re: "Installing two drives" question - what next?
 

Thanks to all who responded. It's been interesting.

I would agree with the folks who said "try one drive at a time" or
"try the other controller". Certainly the cable itself could be
the problem. I'm not sure I would have given up on trying more
things with the BIOS, either.

However, no one mentioned anything like the actual choices:

A. Replace the C drive because it is now bad.
B. Conclude that the two drives are incompatible.
C. Conclude that the two drives are non-standard.
D. Replace both the C and D drives because they are now bad.

I'm about 99% sure of the exact wording, specifically, the use of
"now bad".

I don't actually remember how I answered (and don't know what their
"right" answer is, of course). I probably figured that it's
really, really unlikely that both drives are "now bad", and there's
nothing that suggests "the C drive" is more likely to have failed
than "the D drive". I don't know what "incompatible" meant - with
each other or with the motherboard? I would assume (this may be
wrong) that if the drive connectors mated with the cable
connectors, they're probably not "non-standard" (again, whatever
that means).

Anyone else have any thoughts (he asked unnecessarily)?

bok118@zonnet.nl (Gerard Bok) wrote in
news:42ef7a73.2112052@News.Individual.NET:

> By the way: congratulations!

Thanks!

Jim

Re: "Installing two drives" question - what next?
 

On Thu, 04 Aug 2005 12:35:50 -0500, Jim <none@example.com> wrote:

>Thanks to all who responded. It's been interesting.
>
>I would agree with the folks who said "try one drive at a time" or
>"try the other controller". Certainly the cable itself could be
>the problem. I'm not sure I would have given up on trying more
>things with the BIOS, either.
>
>However, no one mentioned anything like the actual choices:
>
>A. Replace the C drive because it is now bad.
>B. Conclude that the two drives are incompatible.
>C. Conclude that the two drives are non-standard.
>D. Replace both the C and D drives because they are now bad.

I have seen drive incompatibility before. Once it didn't matter which
drive was master and which was slave, and the other time it would only
work one way.

Tom