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Mick
Guest
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 Posted: Wed Oct 29, 2003 4:22 am Post subject: Adding second hard drive to older Gateway PC with controller |
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I tried to install a hard drive on a friends Gateway today (Pentium III 550
64MB RAM about 4.5 years old) and had a few problems. I only had a short
time to do it and will go back tomorrow when I have more time.
I think the PC had a controller card (Promise) and an existing 10GB drive.
I checked it was set to Master and set the new 40GB drive to slave and
connected it to the power supply and same ribbon cable as the master.
The drive is recognised in the BIOS and the new hardware wizard ran when the
PC booted into Windows. The problem is that when I try to install the drive
(Western Digital) using the WD utility on a boot floppy, the PC just bleeps
like crazy after I get to the screen which says the drive is not installed
and whether I like to set it up. I enter "Yes" then get the bleeps.
Could the drive be faulty or is there some special procedure in setting a
second drive up in a PC that has a controller card? |
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Ben Myers
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| Posted: Wed Oct 29, 2003 4:45 am Post subject: Re: Adding second hard drive to older Gateway PC with contro |
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Mick,
Try to set up the drive WITHOUT running the WD utility.
If the system is running Windows NT, 2000, or XPee, the built-in disk manager
will partition and format the drive no sweat.
If the system is running Window 95 or 98, open up a DOS box, enter the command
FDISK, select the second drive, set up a single partition, exit from FDISK,
close the DOS box, reboot. After reboot, make sure that the new drive is
visible as the D: drive, open up a DOS box, enter in the command "FORMAT D:" (no
quotes tho), respond Y, and format the drive. When this is all done, you are
ready to use the added drive.
I forget whether or not Windows ME has FDISK and FORMAT.
It's likely that the WD utility is not compatible with a Promise controller. It
is not necessary anyway, as long as the motherboard BIOS can handle the capacity
of the added disk drive... Ben Myers
On Tue, 28 Oct 2003 22:22:18 -0000, "Mick" <Mick@antispam.com> wrote:
| Quote: | I tried to install a hard drive on a friends Gateway today (Pentium III 550
64MB RAM about 4.5 years old) and had a few problems. I only had a short
time to do it and will go back tomorrow when I have more time.
I think the PC had a controller card (Promise) and an existing 10GB drive.
I checked it was set to Master and set the new 40GB drive to slave and
connected it to the power supply and same ribbon cable as the master.
The drive is recognised in the BIOS and the new hardware wizard ran when the
PC booted into Windows. The problem is that when I try to install the drive
(Western Digital) using the WD utility on a boot floppy, the PC just bleeps
like crazy after I get to the screen which says the drive is not installed
and whether I like to set it up. I enter "Yes" then get the bleeps.
Could the drive be faulty or is there some special procedure in setting a
second drive up in a PC that has a controller card?
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Edward J. Neth
Guest
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| Posted: Wed Oct 29, 2003 5:52 am Post subject: Re: Adding second hard drive to older Gateway PC with contro |
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You cannot use the WD utility to install a drive connected to a Promise
controller - use fdisk (DOS) or disk administrator (NT/2000/XP) to partition
and format the drive.
"Mick" <Mick@antispam.com> wrote in message
news:B_Bnb.633$8E3.429@newsfep1-gui.server.ntli.net...
| Quote: | I tried to install a hard drive on a friends Gateway today (Pentium III
550
64MB RAM about 4.5 years old) and had a few problems. I only had a short
time to do it and will go back tomorrow when I have more time.
I think the PC had a controller card (Promise) and an existing 10GB drive.
I checked it was set to Master and set the new 40GB drive to slave and
connected it to the power supply and same ribbon cable as the master.
The drive is recognised in the BIOS and the new hardware wizard ran when
the
PC booted into Windows. The problem is that when I try to install the
drive
(Western Digital) using the WD utility on a boot floppy, the PC just
bleeps
like crazy after I get to the screen which says the drive is not installed
and whether I like to set it up. I enter "Yes" then get the bleeps.
Could the drive be faulty or is there some special procedure in setting a
second drive up in a PC that has a controller card?
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Mick
Guest
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| Posted: Wed Oct 29, 2003 1:43 pm Post subject: Re: Adding second hard drive to older Gateway PC with contro |
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Thanks Ben and Edward I will go back this morning and try your suggestions.
Unfortunately the computer is running Windows Millennium so I hope this does
not complicate matters.
"Edward J. Neth" <ejn63@netscape.com> wrote in message
news:6jDnb.21318$Q93.11800@newssvr31.news.prodigy.com...
| Quote: | You cannot use the WD utility to install a drive connected to a Promise
controller - use fdisk (DOS) or disk administrator (NT/2000/XP) to
partition
and format the drive. |
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Mick
Guest
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| Posted: Wed Oct 29, 2003 2:14 pm Post subject: Re: Adding second hard drive to older Gateway PC with contro |
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Would it be possible just to connect the new hard drive on the same IDE as
the single optical drive thereby cutting out the promise card?
| Quote: |
"Edward J. Neth" <ejn63@netscape.com> wrote in message
news:6jDnb.21318$Q93.11800@newssvr31.news.prodigy.com...
You cannot use the WD utility to install a drive connected to a Promise
controller - use fdisk (DOS) or disk administrator (NT/2000/XP) to
partition
and format the drive.
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Mick
Guest
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| Posted: Wed Oct 29, 2003 2:20 pm Post subject: Re: Adding second hard drive to older Gateway PC with contro |
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Ben & Edward just an additional question or two. Why do/did Gateway use
controller cards, what is the benefit?
Could I simply remove the controller card and connect the 10GB drive
straight to the IDE connector and slave the new 40GB drive to it like I have
done before.
Mick.
"Edward J. Neth" <ejn63@netscape.com> wrote in message
news:6jDnb.21318$Q93.11800@newssvr31.news.prodigy.com...
| Quote: | You cannot use the WD utility to install a drive connected to a Promise
controller - use fdisk (DOS) or disk administrator (NT/2000/XP) to
partition
and format the drive. |
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Edward J. Neth
Guest
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| Posted: Wed Oct 29, 2003 6:46 pm Post subject: Re: Adding second hard drive to older Gateway PC with contro |
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Most likely, because the drive installed was ATA66, while the onboard
controller is ATA33.
It makes almost no difference from a performance standpoint, but was an
advertising/marketing tool.
"Mick" <Mick@antispam.com> wrote in message
news:GHKnb.45$jl2.112795@newsfep1-win.server.ntli.net...
| Quote: | Ben & Edward just an additional question or two. Why do/did Gateway use
controller cards, what is the benefit?
Could I simply remove the controller card and connect the 10GB drive
straight to the IDE connector and slave the new 40GB drive to it like I
have
done before. |
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Scott
Guest
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| Posted: Thu Oct 30, 2003 12:34 am Post subject: Re: Adding second hard drive to older Gateway PC with contro |
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Mick,
I've had a problem installing a second drive via the Promise controller card.
The second drive wasn't recognized. I ended up juggling things around so
the second drive connected on a different cable which was not part of the
controller card. This is with Win98.
Scott
Mick wrote:
| Quote: | I tried to install a hard drive on a friends Gateway today (Pentium III 550
64MB RAM about 4.5 years old) and had a few problems. I only had a short
time to do it and will go back tomorrow when I have more time.
I think the PC had a controller card (Promise) and an existing 10GB drive.
I checked it was set to Master and set the new 40GB drive to slave and
connected it to the power supply and same ribbon cable as the master.
The drive is recognised in the BIOS and the new hardware wizard ran when the
PC booted into Windows. The problem is that when I try to install the drive
(Western Digital) using the WD utility on a boot floppy, the PC just bleeps
like crazy after I get to the screen which says the drive is not installed
and whether I like to set it up. I enter "Yes" then get the bleeps.
Could the drive be faulty or is there some special procedure in setting a
second drive up in a PC that has a controller card? |
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boxdan476
Guest
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| Posted: Fri Oct 31, 2003 6:53 am Post subject: Re: Adding second hard drive to older Gateway PC with contro |
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"Mick" <Mick@antispam.com> wrote in message
news:GHKnb.45$jl2.112795@newsfep1-win.server.ntli.net...
| Quote: | Ben & Edward just an additional question or two. Why do/did Gateway use
controller cards, what is the benefit?
Could I simply remove the controller card and connect the 10GB drive
straight to the IDE connector and slave the new 40GB drive to it like I
have
done before.
Mick.
|
I had a similar situation with an older Gateway PC at work. It was a 450MHz
K6 with a 20GB HDD plus a CD and an IDE zip drive. I wanted to add a second
HDD but I could not get the PC to handle it. After much effor t I bought an
inexpensive ATA-100 PCI card and ran one HDD and the other drives off it.
The boot drive remained on IDE 1. All was well. It seems the older chipsets
do not handle HDD on both IDE channels for some reason. I didn't think the
controller cards were ever offered OEM were they? It may have been added
after market in order to achieve hight transfer speeds other than the ATA33
of the motherboard.
You might try the same arrangement with the boot drive on IDE1, optical on
IDE2 and the new HDD on the promise controller. The old HDD probably will
not benefit much from ATA 66 anyway. I never did really find out why the
system would not recognize the second HDD on the regular IDE channels, I
finally gave up and went with what works.
--
Boxdan476
"Chance proposes, death disposes." -AFRICAN GENESIS
| Quote: | "Edward J. Neth" <ejn63@netscape.com> wrote in message
news:6jDnb.21318$Q93.11800@newssvr31.news.prodigy.com...
You cannot use the WD utility to install a drive connected to a Promise
controller - use fdisk (DOS) or disk administrator (NT/2000/XP) to
partition
and format the drive.
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