Q: because my hard drive was faulty, i had it formatted and had XP reinstalled on it, but it still tended to cause system instability, so i got myself a second drive, formatted both and installed xp on my new hard drive (the old one was not connected at the time) and booted up the pc. now the computer runs fine, but it wont detect the old drive that i set as a primary slave. if you need to know, the jumper settings on both the drives are (I indicates jumper): 1st drive: : : : : I 2nd drive: : : : I : why doesnt it detect my slave? must i reinstall xp with the two hard drives attached or what? remove one colon from the jumper settings, the text got a bit mashed up do the IDE leads have to do with anything? i connected the 2 hard drives in the IDE 1 port, my 2 dvdrom drives in the IDE 2 port, and my floppy drive in the usual port.
A: Providing the old drive hasn't given up the ghost completely. As you have shown the slave jumper is usually the second from the right. The IDE strap must be connect to the master by using the end connection and the slave drive connected to the middle one. When you reboot it should then show in My Computer as drive E: if you have a CD drive or F: if you have a DVD drive as well. You can change the drive letters around if you want afterwards. When I installed mine I set them to Main C:, Slave D:, CD Drive E:, DVD Drive F:, USB Storage G: If you want any help with that email me.