PeterD wrote:

On Thu, 13 May 2010 12:53:11 -0700, "David Farber"
wrote:



Sorry if the description wasn't clear. Let me try to list the chain of
events.

1. Pc works fine with Seagate drive as master drive on first IDE channel.
2. Installed another hard drive to test as master on secondary channel.
3. Pc freezes while trying to list attached drives. Cannot access bios
screen.
4. I remove the drive on the secondary channel.
5. At some point I think I was able to get into the bios menu after removing
the test drive but at that point, it indicated no drive was present.
6. After a couple of more tries, I cannot get to the bios menu anymore.
7. I tried different jumper settings on the Seagate drive and clearing the
CMOS. This didn't solve the problem.
8. Substituted another drive just to see if the Seagate drive was causing
the problem. No problems with a different drive installed. Drive is
recognized properly.



Still not really clear... #1 above says the computer works OK with the
Seagate drive.
#7 says it doesn't work OK with the Seagate drive.

I'd think you have a bad cable, or you broke the drive.

BTW, you can't 'swap' the controller cards between drives, the NV ram
on the controller is programmed to the drive itself.
Oh it's clear to me.
the first drive is the master to start with, second one as a slave
which he in stalled. The slave connects with the master.. There is
something seriously wrong with the slave, it has destroyed or rewritten
some vital parameters on the master drive. The controller on the master
needs to be corrected..
Also, a true electrical failure may existed on the failed drive that
has now shorted the once working drive, which was the primary (master)..


When testing drives, its always a good idea to boot from a external
device to get your test PC running. Put the test drive in as a master.
Don't have any other drives connected to that channel..