Installing A Second SATA Drive

I am trying to install a second SATA Drive on my desktop. The original one has Vista on it and the new one has XP Home on it. My problem is that my computer will only recognize the drive plugged in the primary port on the motherboard. No matter which one I plug in the secondary port it doesn't show up.

There don't appear to be any master/slave pins on these drives. Does anyone have any suggestions of anything to try? I sure would appreciate all the help that I can get.

Thanks and have a great day.

Harve

In case with SATA there is no master/slave settings.In Bios is your both drives are showing? If yes then try by pressing F8 (when PC starts) to get boot up menu.

You need to go into the BIOS Setup and make sure that the [Drive Parameter] configuration settings reflect the reality of what is actually connected. The easiest way to do this is to have the BIOS set to "Dynamically Auto-detect" ["Auto" will auto-detect and configure the parameters of] the connected drives.
Make sure the SECONDARY SATA CONTROLLER is enabled.

Thanks for both replies. Here's what I have found out so far. The <F8> key takes me to the menu that lets you choose to start in Safe Mode. The <F12> key takes you to a very basic Boot Menu. The <F2> key takes you to a CMOS Setup screen.

Only one drive is showing up in the Setup screen. Is there another <F> key that I should use to get to the BIOS screen because I can't find any reference to "Dynamically Auto-Detect" or "Secondary SATA Controller"?

I am working on a Dell 521 Desktop with Vista Home Premium 32 bit.

I found there are 4 SATA connections on the motherboard. One is used by the existing hard drive and one by the CD Rom. I tried plugging the second hard drive in both of the other two plugs to no avail.

Let me know if there is anything else to try. Thanks again for both replies and have a great day.

Harve

My friend you are correct but you need to try some permutations & combination's with your 4 SATA connections.
Try to check if your both Drives are being detected.
Do you have any jumper set to your Hard Drives? If yes then try to remove that & attach your drive again & see if it gets detected.

Steve123,

Thanks for replying so quickly to my posting.

Only one drive is detected on the CMOS Setup screen. Dell says that is the BIOS Screen but I don't know.

There aren't any jumpers on either drive.

Dell's website said something about SATA 1 and SATA 2 drives not working together. I will check that out today to see which version of SATA each drive is.

The primary hard drive is plugged into a red connector. If I plug the second drive into that connector it works. It appears that the only drive that is detected is whichever one is plugged into that red connector.

Do you know of anything else to check out? All help will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks again and have a great day.

Harve

I think this problem may occur because the power supply cable to another SATA drive may not attached properly so make sure that all the connections are properly working.

Thanks for all of the replies, everybody. They are much appreciated. I'm making progress.

I went back on Dell's website for the fourth time today. I finally figured out how to word the question properly to get to the right article.

It turns out CMOS Setup is BIOS. I really didn't know that. You have to go into the Advanced screen. Then you go into the Integrated Peripheral screen. Next you click Enter on Serial-ATA Config. That gets you into a screen where you can enable RAID and all of the drives.

I started it back up and went back into the BIOS screen and it now recognizes both drives. Unfortunately it gives me an error and says "Enter <F10> for RAID Setup Utility. Either way you get on the top left of the screen "No boot device available" then it shows the two hds and the cd drive as being installed.

Both drives have operating systems on them so why won't it boot up? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks and have a great day.

Harve

I have been involved with computers for nearly 30 years and only over the past 10 maybe 11 years I ventured into the "build them yourself" style, so when I my first computer was built, I switched on and amazingly because of my experience alone, it booted up with no problems at all, further more, having never ever installed a sata hard drive I was at first too afraid to venture down that road but I knew that I would have to attempt it soon at some time anyway, so I decided to build myself a second computer from scratch, but this time have a go at doing it.

I seeked advice online and from the local computer shops on how it should be done the proper way and although I did have some teething issues at first, I did eventually succeed in the end.

NOW, I have 2 SATA Hard Drives, a (750 GB) And a (500 GB) Hard Drive, both partitioned into 2, and on the 750 GB, I have Windows XP Home 32 Bit on the first partition and Windows XP Professional 32 Bit on the second partition - ALL EQUAL PARTITION SIZES.

Then on the 2nd Hard Drive, the 500 GB, that to is also devided into 2 partitions - the first partition has Windows Vista Home Premium 32 Bit version installed on it and the second partition has Windows Vista Home Premium 64 Bit Version - BOTH PARTITIONS ARE AGAIN OF EQUAL SIZES.

If a motherboard has 3 - 3.5GB of RAM (Memory) fixed to it, and you intend to take it over 4GB RAM, then a 32 Bit OS will only read the first 3 - 3.5 GB RAM on it and ignore the rest which will slow down your pc speed's ability and performance, IT WILL NOT READ >3.5 GB MAX...Which is why I have 1 64 Bit version installed (for coverance).

Because of all my experience, i found eventually that it is really easy and simple to install 2 sata hard drives in one PC system and get them to work simultaneously.

I HOPE THAT YOU WILL STICK AT IT AND SUCCEED IN YOUR PROJECT WORK.

Chris...