Configuration needed for two hard drives

[Elliot500]

I recently upgraded my primary hard drive which includes changing from IDE to SATA. I can get that to work on its own but I can no longer get my secondary IDE disk to be recognised.
I have a SATA converter for it and used it that way before but am lost as to the configuration needed.
Here's my set up:
ASUS motherboard, 1 IDE slot, 4 SATA slots.
Primary HD: SATA
Secondary HD: IDE with SATA converter
DVD drive: IDE connected to IDE slot

I can use the primary and DVD fine but am unsure which cables/slots to use and the jumper pin settings needed for the two HDs.
Your help is appreciated.

[camerongray]

Can't you connect your old HDD to the IDE port like your DVD drive is instead of using the converter?

[Elliot500]

No because then it will appear in BIOS as being the master disk when I only have my music and back ups on there. The new HD will show as being a slave so the boot won't work.

[patio]

If it's an IDE HDD it has jumpers on it that if set properly designate it Master...or Slave...
Set the jumpers to Slave and it won't be trying to boot to it.

[Elliot500]

So does that mean no jumper pins in the slave? What about in the SATA master? According to the label, the pins seem to work differently to IDE pins.
Edit: I've just tried different jumper settings.
The master SATA has the pin in the two left ones.
If I put no pin in the slave IDE and keep the pin in the DVD drive, it shows the slave as being the IDE master so won't boot.
If I have the DVD drive showing as IDE master, that won't boot either.
So the catch 22 seems to be that if it recognises both IDE drives (slave and DVD), it won't boot up as the SATA master can only appear below these two.

[patio]

The SATA doesn't need jumpers...
The IDE should be jumpered as Slave.

[Geek-9pm]

It may help if the OP can provide the model number of the motherboard and the BIOS version. Then some here could find the manual and see what the user manual says.
Most modern systems will put the SATA  as the preferred boot device.
The Bios should have a BOOT preference menu or setting.

[Elliot500]

The Motherboard is ASUS: P5KPL-AM EPU
BIOS is American Megatrends Inc. 0501

I'm not that knowledgeable with BIOS so if anything needs to change, I'd appreciate your help.

[Elliot500]

The SATA doesn't need jumpers...
The IDE should be jumpered as Slave.

This I don't get because with two IDEs, the slave is supposed to have no jumpers so surely I need one to be set to Master?

[Geek-9pm]

For what it is worth. This is about the old IDE or PATA method.
The IDE thing was old technology. But modern motherboards still support it and it can be very useful if you have old drives laying around.
Which cable type is used for the IDE? There is the plain 40 wire cable. And there is the fancy 80 wire cable.
For the 40 wire cable, one must use master and slave pin settings. It is common practice to set a DC/DVD drive to slave, even if it is the only drive on the cable.
Some IDE drives have veery confusing pin settings. Look very carefully. You might have the drive upside down!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This should have noting at all to do with SATA. Because SATA cables are far different.

[Elliot500]

Hi Geek,

It's the 40 pin IDE cable. I can set the DVD to slave but it doesn't alter the problem with the 2 hard drives. The main problem is that if I connect both HDs to the SATA slots, with the converter on the slave HD, neither of them will get recognised and it won't boot.
This is when I haven't changed anything about the master HD config which will boot if it is connected independently from the slave.

[patio]

Set the DVD to Master...and the HDD to slave...

Cable as follows:    MBoard__________________Slave_____Maste r.

[Elliot500]

Set the DVD to Master...and the HDD to slave...

Cable as follows:    MBoard__________________Slave_____Maste r.

Sorry patio, but can you leave it to others to advise me? Setting the DVD to master will also mean it won't boot.

[patio]

I'll leave it to others at your request then...
My 1 PC boots fine with the above configuration.....Best of Luck.

[strollin]

Lots of confusion on this thread.  First off, setting an IDE drive to Master will not necessarily make it the boot drive.  Set the Boot order in the BIOS to tell the machine to boot from the SATA drive.

In an IDE configuration with 2 drives, one of them is designated as Master and the other as Slave, this has more to do with which is in charge rather than which the system will boot from.  It would be possible to set the DVD drive as Master and the hdd as Slave and still boot from the hdd.

Just to add more confusion, it's also possible to set up the IDE drives using Cable Select in which the position the drive is connected to the cable determines the Master/Slave relationship.

Personally, I would set the hdd as Master, DVD as Slave, then set the boot order in the BIOS so that the SATA drive is the boot drive.