Dual HDD / BIOS problem

[RayB]

I recently helped my brother install a new 40gig HD in his Gateway PC running WinME. The original 15gig HD was nearly full. He wanted the new HD to be the Master and the old one the slave. So, as I have done dozens of times before, I configured the jumpers and ribbon cables, installed the new HD using the utility software that came with it on CD (which formats, partitions, loads system files), and when finished, the PC would boot to the new HD (Master), but the old one (Slave) had no drive letter assigned. We could not access it.

I rebooted and entered the BIOS. Both HDDs were set to Auto Detect, and BIOS showed them both by name and size, but the slave had no letter assigned. Thus, we could not access it.

I reconfigured the jumpers and cables so that the machine would now boot from the old HD as Master, but still, no letter was assigned to the new 40gig Slave. Again, I entered the BIOS. It showed both drives by name and size, etc., but would not assigned a letter to the slave. No matter which one I configured as Slave, BIOS would not assign a letter

I don't know the name of the BIOS Gateway used on this machine (and I am now out of state and can't look at it). As this PC boots up, the BIOS POST does not show on screen. The screen is blank until WinME loads. Is this typical of WinME or of Gateway? Anyone know?

Anyone have any idea what the problem is? Why will this BIOS not assign the slave a drive letter? We checked and double checked our jumpers and cables Anyone had a similar experience? How did you solve or work around it?

[ka6]

RayB: I'm in a similar situation. My 13gig master drive was beginning to make an awful noise, so I replaced it with a 40 gig as master. I already had a 40g as a slave installed. Now, my new master boots fine, but I too cannot see the slave drive. In system properties/device manager, it shows the two drives, but my computer only shows the single drive. Yes, I have done this a dozen times, always successful. Why the lack of recognizing this drive?  
I did unplug the ribbon cable and power from the slave when installing the new master, then installed new OS, 98SE, then plugged the slave back in.  

If you come up with any answers, I would sure appreciate any info. Thanks!

[Ray]

Since the machine is in Ga and I am in Ms, it will be awhile before I can try what I have discovered so far, but a couple of web sites you may want to try are: fdisk.com and format.com.  From what I have read there (and links from those pages), I think the problem is incompatible partitioning and formatting by using an overlay (like MaxBlast by Maxtor, or something similar from another HD mfg.). If the two drives are not partitioned and formatted by the same means, then the machine BIOS will not assign one a letter. I don't know why, but this is what I have read. And as I said, I don't yet know if it will solve my brother's problem, but as soon as I can try it, I will. What I plan to do is remove the MaxBlast overlay from the new 40gig Maxtor HD and re-partition it using fdisk.exe, and the format using format.exe. Then see if both are assigned letters. If not, then I don't know the next move. But if you are where you can go ahead and try this, do so and let me know if it works for you.