W98 - adding 2nd drive...

Yes you do need to format the drive.

Oh and disregard "9.After the format, you can switch to your CD-ROM drive and run setup.exe." im my post sicne you are not installing and OS on tht disk

FDISK SIMULATION
http://www.computerhope.com/sfdisk3.htm

http://www.blkviper.com/Articles/OS/fdisk/fdisk1.htm

i have no idea what crazy's talking about.. looks like cut-and-paste work out of other q's or something. what he wrote is mostly irrelevent to your situation.

yes you will need to partition and format the new drive. it may be a real easy process, or it may be a pain in the backside...

first: jumper the drives properly. 40gb as master (or master-with-slave present), the new 120gb as slave. check the drive's labels, documentation or mfg's web site for help. then hook up the master drive to the end connector, slave to the middle one.

second: most newer systems are configured to auto-detect ide drives upon boot up. but if it's not recognized, you'll need to go into bios setup to configure it. if the bios doesnt recognize it, or the system locks up when it tries to detect it, (and you know drives are jumpered correctly) configure primary slave as 1023x16x63 and then use the drive maker's install utility boot disk to install and format the drive. if your computer has a mfg logo upon boot up and you dont get to see bios post messages, esc or tab usually makes the logo go away so you can see what's behind it.  common keys for getting into bios setup are del, f1, f2, f10... if you've got a compaq or hp, f10, homemade systems usually del, others try f1 or f10 if del doesnt work.

at this point, if your're familiar with boot disks and fdisk, and if your drive is recognized to it's full capacity by your system, you can proceed with booting the system, windows open a command prompt, or go straight to command prompt (best) at boot menu (f8 before windows splash screen appears).. and use fdisk to partition the SECOND drive). reboot into windows then format the new (and currently unrecognized) d: drive. your hd may show up as e: or f: make sure it's unrecognized if you try to access it in windows explorer before attempting to format.

third: since you have an older system, it's best to use the new drive mfg's install utility boot disk to install, partition and format the new drive (it will test your system for compatibility and install a workaround to the boot record if it's not). maxtor, seagate, western digital all include one in their retail kits, or you can download a boot disk maker from the support or downloads area of the mfg's web site. boot to the floppy (or cd in some cases) and follow the on screen prompts. since each one is a bit different, i cant walk you through step by step, but a typical process would be something like:  install new drive, partition and format (make sure you are selecting the new 120gb drive), and then decline the offer to copy your old drive to the new one.

there is a slight chance that your motherboard will require a bios flash upgrade in order to work with a 120gb drive.

make sure you're partitioning and formatting the correct drive, whichever way you choose to do it.

if you need further help, provide the drive mfg's and model numbers, computer mfg and model (if name brand) and motherboard mfg and model (off the board itself.. if it's a home-made system).

drive mfg web sites: www.seagate.com / www.maxtor.com / www.wdc.com

if you need a general windows boot disk: www.bootdisk.com

What is so irrelevant what I posted other than the deletion part What I posted is how you partition and format a disk. I have partitioned and formatted many disks this way. So what I posted is not irrelevant and I would appreciate it if you would keep your derogatory inaccurate remarks to yourself

well, if you need it spelled out. every question is different and is not  adequately answered by a canned, cut-and-paste answer.

1. he's got a new drive, no partition to delete.

2. you dont need to boot to a floppy to run fdisk on a secondary drive. you can boot to command prompt from the startup menu or run it from a command prompt under win98 just fine just exit the command prompt when finished and select restart from the shutdown menu (which you're prompted to do if you run fdisk under windows)

3. steps 6-11 in the first part of your first reply are irrelevent; deal with deleting an existing partition (which wont be there on a new drive), nor does a second drive need a partition marked as active.

4. steps 5, 7-9 in the second part of your first reply are irrelevent. you can format a newly created partition in windows, and it's faster. since he's adding a second drive, not replacing his boot drive, this is the way to go if he's not using the drive mfg's install utility.

5. drive manufacturer utilities are designed for easy of use by novices and to hand-hold users through the process. these utilities are designed to reduce support calls to their manufacturer's call centers.. and that's what they do. they enable end users to do things for themselves. this person doesnt even need to touch fdisk or a command prompt if they dont want to.

6. you failed to mention the distinct possibility that a 120gb drive may not go into an older system without a little 'help'. when using the drive install utility, the bios will be tested for compatibility and a workaround will be installed if necessary.. all automatically.

7. in your 2nd, 3rd and 4th replies you're just trying to quickly c.y.a. because of your hastily posted first try. whereas i spent 20+ minutes typing a complete and accurate response.

8. your first reply is something that you have copied-and-pasted from a paq (and it wasnt applicable there either, btw). sorry you were offended by having your c&p job caught. 4 responses in 3 minutes and you still didnt get it completely right.

rant mode: on... this web site service is *not* a competition. it helps if you read someone's question completely before racing someone else to provide an answer (which i've seen you go back and forth with others elsewhere....)  "hmm. format. oh, i did one of those before.. snip-paste-done" no offense, but that's not how it works. rant mode: off.

You still haven't proven that what I posted is irrelevant so stop pestering me with your inaccuracies and you utter lack of knowledge of this site. This is not your site so stop telling people how to use the site.

DO NOT POST ANOTHER COMMENT DIRECTED TOWARD ME AGAIN ESPECIALLY SINCE MANY OF YOUR COMMENTS ARE ONLY OPINIONS AND PART OF THEM ARE IRRELEVANT.

FWIW:
>>> nor does a second drive need a partition marked as active <<<     True, but I always make Primary Partitions active. It doesn't hurt anything, and makes life easier down the road when you decide to change the function of the drive.

Thanks guys, i'll play with this tommorrow and advise.

Anthony

1) my system is a home built. My mobo is no longer being supported by the manufacture - pc chips mobo, bought 5 years ago.  I checked the web site.

2) here is some more info you guys will need - I have a 40 gig hard drive, 1 cd-rw drive, and 1 dvd-rom drive.

3) I tried to add the 4th drive to my set up - and its not recognized on my system.  

4).  Ive never used fdisk or partioning at all - im eager to learn, but I cant loose any of my info on the 40 gig drive.

5) I know im going to get confused with the jumper settings (primary, slave, master, master-slave) not to mention the bios settings.  

I know enough to get the system where its at now - but adding this 2nd drive - is it really that complicated as you both mention (private sqabbles aside) ?

Anthony

Take the 40GB drive out of the system. On the top of most drives there is a diagraam of the jumper settings. Find the one marked as slave and set the jumpers accordingly. Now connect this dsik to tha same cable the 4OGB was on but on the connector that is near the middle of the ribbon cable.

Put your Win98 floppy boot disk in the floppy drive and boot to it then run fdisk

1.Type FDISK the at the command prompt and press ENTER:

2.Click #1. Create DOS Partition or Logical DOS drive' and press ENTER.

3.Click #1. Create Primary DOS Partition' and press ENTER.

4.Follow the instructions to create a primary partition of the desired size.

5.Set your Active Partition. Select 2 from the FDISK Main menu, and set your active partition drive. It should be your primary partition.

6.Now that's done, get out of FDISK and reboot your system and boot from your boot disk. When you again arrive at the DOS prompt, you can use the format command to format your hard disk drives:

7.At the A:\ type Format X: Where X: is the drive you want to format and press ENTER.

8.Format will ask you if your sure you wish to continue and at this point the data been long gone so just hit the Y key.
=====================

FDISK SIMULATION
http://www.computerhope.com/sfdisk3.htm

http://www.blkviper.com/Articles/OS/fdisk/fdisk1.htm

If you take the 40GB drive out of the machine then there is no chance of accidentally formatting it.

Also if your BIOS doesn't see the DISK then you need what is called an overlay program or an IDE controller card which has its own BIOS and will see this new drive. I would opt for the IDE PCI CARD if I had a PCI slot not being used. One thing IDE cards can do is help one get the most of the ATA speed out of the disk. Plus when people use Overlay programs they tend to forget that they used it and when they need to redo something with the disk they find that their efforts are being thwarted and it is because of the Overlay program that they forgot about.

>>>Take the 40GB drive out of the system

Actually just unplug the power and ribbon cable.

BTW who made these disks. If either or both are Western Digital then they have a rather odd jumper settitng. And sometimes they can be a bear to get them to cooperate with other disks properly.

Something else what is the wattag3 of your Power supply? The power supply may not have enough juice to properly run the extra drive.

1)  Its a 300 watt Power supply

2) I removed the 40gig drive, plugged in the new 120 gig drive and completed the fdkis.  Problem is when I try to format the C: it says "format c not supported"  or something like that.  I thought maybe the format.exe wasnt present on the floppy, so I tryed format a: - and of course it formatted floppy disk - so a few minuets later after creating a new boot disk - I still cant format the C:  - not sure if that really matters.

3)  I am now getting a little confused with my jumper settings.  I have the 40 gig drive as master, the 120 gig drive on slave - they are both connected to the same cable.  (im forgetting about the cd-rw and dvd drives for now)  

When I boot up, I get a 25 second message "detecting ide drives" then "no operation system present."  

What do I do from here?  Also increased points big time due to lenght of time invovled.

sorry they are both western digital drives.  I dont think i'll need the disk utility as it says they are good for drives greater than 137 gig.

Here is my bios set up

IDE PRimary Master - none
IDE Primary Slave - cd-wr drive
IDE Secondary Master - 40 gig drive
IDE Secondary Slave - none

Ok go back and run fdisk and when you see the menu type in the number 4 amd then post the results

example

                        Display Partition Information

  Current fixed disk drive: 1

  Partition  Status   Type    Volume Label  Mbytes   System   Usage
   C: 1         A    PRI DOS   WIN98          7680   FAT32      100%


  Total disk space is   7680 Mbytes (1 Mbyte = 1048576 bytes)

Here is the info you requested,

Display Partition Information

Current fixed disk drive: 1

Partition  Status   Type    Volume Label  Mbytes   System   Usage
 C: 1         A    PRI DOS                        48935    unknown  100%


FYI, the drive is not reading as c: - but is d:  (Not sure if that mattered)

Anthony

That looks like yur 40GB drive
Was there a fifth option on fdisk menu that reads "Change current fixed disk drive"
if so choose that then do the fdisk number 4 on that drive.

Teh 404 gi drive was disconnected during the fdisk process.  (What I have been doing is swapping drives - the new drive for set up purposed and reinstalling the old drive so I can continue working on some business.  But for all actions I have done - I have done them without the 404 gig drive connected.

No - there was no 5th option.  Any ideas ?

Can you go over each setting for each device because I Think I either switched and swapped drives/cables and jumpers so many times, im so lost.

I mean - can you tell me - one cable 1 - put the 40 gig drive on the middle of the cable, and 120 gig drive on the end. juimper the 40 gig drive how ? then jumper the 120 gig drive how ?  Do they need to be on the same cable ? How are they set up in relation to the cd-rw and dvd rom drives ?  

It may even be best to start from scratch - from the initial hardware instalation ? Thanks for all your help for now.

SUCCESS !  Here is what I got.  I went to a few web sites and found out that in order to add a 2nd hard drive - it has to be on the same cable as the 1st hard drive.  So after moving some things around  - the 40 gig drive was set as master on the end of cable "1", and set the 120 gig hard drive as slave with master on the middle connector of cable "1".  

When I boot up - both drives (C=40 gig) and (D=120 gig) are showing up in my "MY Computer".  However when I click on "D", i get an error - no access or something like that.  I was never able to format that drive in dos - so you think that could be it ?

ok - I right clicked over the d drive and it formatted fine - also did thorough scan disk and I msut report all is well.

Awarding 350 points to Crazy - thanks - without you  I would be lost.  

50 points to coral47 for the formatting help.

Thank you much.    : )

Enjoy the new drive.  ; )

I am so glad we could help you, kudos Coral. :)