hdd problems....need help

[casperunicron2004]

I was given a few different hard drives varing from 10 gigs to 4 gigs. I have tried to connect them to my computer individually and there dosen't seem to be power going to some of them...there is one that does. I have checked ide cables and everything is fine there but what would cause the no power issue. My power supply for my computer is fine. Also the one that does have power won't detect in the bios....i am running compaq which doesn't give much options to change in bios....can someone please help, i was recommanded to this site from distrautuser. Thank you. Jason

[brad]

Is the Jumper on the HD installed in the computer set to "Master" and the one you're hooking up set to "Slave"?
brad

[casperunicron2004]

[brad]

[ogrrii]

you could connect the drives you have been given to the secondary IDE channel (assuming that it has nothing attached to it) that way the jumper settings wont matter .

If you have identical drives and one spins and one doesn't you can swap the boards over.

If i 'play' like this i disconnect my main hard drive that way it stop the boot into windows and is much quicked when you are swapping stuff around.
It can also stop you getting a virus that may be on one of the drives as well