BRINGING TWO IDE HHs INTO THE FRAY

JC Allison:
As it turns out, the problem is with the lock/switch on the bay insert. Not
only are the switched inoperable in their present configuration, the keys
are not compatible either.

J:

JCA:
There is presently no jumper selected, and that sets the WesternDigital HDDs
to Single Drive or Master, which is correct for the way this is to be used.

Anyway, thanks for the response. I know more now than I did, but what I
learned was not the solution to the problem. It's always something...

 

JC Allison:
Alright.

CC:

JCA:
That is the two WesternDigital IDE HDDs

CC:

JCA:
As you may have or have not read that the problem with the computer not
detecting the IDE drives was a fault of a switch, and that has been removed
from the system. The IE drives are going to be integrally mounted and
conncted. They are both in Single Drive/Master in the jumper department. The
Primary Master has the CD ROM as Primary Slave. And the other WD IDE HDD is
the Secondary Master.

CC:

JCA:
They are on separate controllers.

CC:

JCA:
I'm understanding you perfectly. To reiterate... both jumpered for Single
Drive/Master, each on a separate controller, with the Primary Master having
the CD ROM as the Primary Slave.

I have to move the two Seagate SCSI HDDs each down one level in the HDD
bays, and install the two WD IDE HDDs in the upper bays. I also have to move
the CD ROM drive down to the bottom bay of the upper front access bays.

Anyway, all of this will go quickly just as soon as I'm positive about what
I'm doing, so I don't mess something up in the process... I can do this...
Isn't this fun?

 

OUCH! Sounds like you've nailed the problem. Return those suckers if you
can.

I do it all the time with no problem (knock on wood). Things to watch
for: knocking the drive off its support while it's running-keep your
hands, feet, and children/pets well away until it's been shut down. If
you live in a dry climate you might want to ground the drive. I've never
done it but the only time our climate can be described as dry is when
all the moisture is frozen.

Sounds like you have adequate cooling for the case-how's the clearance
around the drives themselves? If all 4 drives are packed top to bottom
then only the top & bottom drives will benefit from the cooling. If you
can space them with at least 1/2" between drives that would be much better.

If your CMOS is already set to Auto-Detect then you shouldn't need to do
anything. If it's set to None, which it could be for SCSI drives, then
you probably need to change it. But it sounds like you're well on your
way now. Good luck.

 

JC Allison:
Well, this morning I gathered up the bay insert and the slide in tray, and
off I went to the place where I got them. This is a fellow I call Bubba ROM
DOS... Why you may ask do I call him Bubba ROM DOS? Well, we live in the
middle of the largest Pine forest in the world, called the Deep East Texas
Pineywood Forest... And if you're a good ol boy, you get called Bubba a
lot... It's pineywood for "brother"... And the rest of it is a play on the
name taken by Richard Alpert upon going to India and becoming a "holy" man
known as Baba Ram Das... It's a long and complex story... Anyway, about the
computer equipment... I explained to him all that I had been through, and
what I had finally determined was the problem... He took the keys that I had
and looked at them carefully, and then he grabbed another ring of keys off
of a shelf, inserted it into the lock, and it worked like a charm on both
switches... I apparently had the wrong keys for the units that I got. We had
a good laugh. I then came home reinstalled the bay inserts, hooked them up
to the ribbon cable and power cable, installed the HDDs into the Cartridge
trays, put the trays into the bays, turned the lock to the LOCKED positon
which in turn puts the switch to the ON position, put the sides back on the
tower, and booted the machine, and it saw both drives at Primary Master and
Secondary Master.

CC:

JCA:
Good to know. It is pretty humid here all the time. The respiration of the
forest is the main source of humidity, but the moist air that comes up from
the Gulf of Mexico is also quite humid... But fortunately, I didn't have to
set the drives up for a test. I just reinstalled them like they were but
this time with the proper key...

CC:

better.

JCA:
both of the Seagates have cooling units on them and thus take up two bays
each. The trays in which the IDE drives are located each have their own
cooling fan. They are pretty slick little units...

CC:

JCA:
Well, what do I have to do to get them recognized on the "My Computer"
window? A: Drive is there (1.44 mb diskette), C: Drive is there (Seagate 18
gig HDD), D: Drive is there (Seagate 16 gig HDD), and E Drive is there (CD
ROM). But there is nothing to indicate that the two 120s are being seen by
the computer.

So what is the best thing to do to make them work? I want to make them into
one NTFS partition each. And I want to format them.

What to do next? And how to do it?

 

If they're seen at bootup then all you should need to do is partition &
format them. The easiest instructions for me would be to boot from a
Win98 floppy & use FDisk to partition, but that's not the easiest way to
do it, just the easiest way for me to give you instructions.

Let's see if I can explain the best way to do it. You need to get into
the Disk Management service. IIRC you can do that by right-clicking on
My Computer & choosing Manage. I'm pretty sure it's accessible from
Control Panel too, but I'm not really sure where.

Anyway, once you have the Disk Management service open (it's under
Storage in Computer Management) you should see all of the disks
recognized by the computer in the lower pane on the right side of the
window. The 2 IDE drives should say unpartitioned. Right-click on them &
choose Partition. Walk thru those screens. IIRC at the end it asks if
you want to format the drives. If not, then once they're partitioned
they'll appear in the upper pane on the right side. Right-click there &
choose format. Naturally I don't have any unpartitioned drives around to
be sure I've given you the right steps, but that's what I remember about
it. Once they're partitioned & formatted they should show up in My Computer.

 

I'm glad you finally figured it out. If you go way back to the
beginning of this post, when we first started, you will see where I
explained how to get these drives initialized and then formatted. That
is it win 2000 or XP? they are a little different, but everything is
done in the disk management screen. Good luck

 

JC Allison:
I put a Win98 floppy, but it was not clear to me what to do, so I deep sixed
that idea...

CC:

JCA:
This is so...

CC:

JCA:
Actually the choice was "Volume".

CC:

JCA:
Actually, it just went ahead and formatted them both. They are now NTFS, and
each is a single partition.

CC:

JCA:
It all went swimmingly!

CC:

JCA:
And so they do...

So now The Scorcher is finally totally finished. It is now ready to do some
TV production. What have I gotten myself into?

Anyway, I just wanted to write a short thank you to all who responded to my
posts... I live alone and because of some health issues, I seldom get out
and about, and no one is allowed to visit. So this messing with the computer
stuff, and having a whole group of people who are at least professionally
involved is a real Boon&Luxury. Thanks again for all the Help&Suggestions.

Hang in there.

 

JC Allison:
And so it was. Thanks for the help... What a learning experience it was. And
in the end, it was that I had the wrong keys with which to turn on the
Removable Media. Still, even if they HAD worked right off, I would still
have had to go through all the partitioning and formatting. So now I know
what to do, and it is like riding a bicycle.

Hopr this finds you all doing great!