Old drives don't work in new rig.

[Quailane]

Hey, I was trying to connect a WD 3.2493 GB ata33 hardrive to my comp with ata133 support even though I already have a 120GB seagate barracuda. I was trying to reformat it so I could install mandrake 9.1 on it so I have another rig, cause the machine I took it from can't boot off a cd. No matter what I did, I couldn't get the drive to run properly in my comp. When I put the old drive as slave on the same channel as my main drive, the bios detects the old drive and lists its name where it should be, and then xp boots. After the loading screen it just goes blank instead of user selections. When I set the old drive on another ide channel, the comp stays and "detecting ide devices" in the bios and is locked up. All of the jumpers on the hard drives are set correctly, but I just can't get my machine into windows with that drive. I was maybe thinking, could it be that I have to use one of those old ata cables with the thick wires instead of today's skinny ones? Can anybody please help?

 

[repo man11]

Yes, an ATA33 (40 wire) cable will almost certainly fix the problem. I think the BIOS is being confused by the old drive and the new style 80 wire cable.

 

[Cornel]

Yes, an ATA33 (40 wire) cable will almost certainly fix the problem. I think the BIOS is being confused by the old drive and the new style 80 wire cable.

Why would that be? I thought the extra 40 wires in the new ATA cables are only for screening (improved quality of the signal).

 

[repo man11]

With ATA66/100/133 cables, pin 34 is missing. This is how the BIOS detects that it is in fact an ATA100 cable, and not an ATA33.

Why exactly the 80 wire cable is necessary for the higher transfer rates of ATA66 and up (from a technical standpoint) has been the subject of long threads in the past. Not being an EE, it is enough for me to understand that they are necessary to reduce crosstalk, and leave it at that.

In this case, the BIOS is detecting the cable correctly, and configuring the drive for a transfer rate that isn't capable of supporting.

I've had old drives that refused to work with 80 wire cables myself. And I've had some older drives that would work with the 80 wire, though they were only ATA33.

I guess whether it works will depend on the make of the drive, and the motherboard, and also possibly variables like the BIOS revision, and even the drives revision because of possible firmware upgrades.

In this case, it isn't working this way, but I'm fairly sure it will work the other way.

 

[Cornel]

Thanks for the explanations, Repoman.

 

[repo man11]

You're welcome!

 

[Quailane]

So will the old wire allow the bios to know it is ata33 and work properly? Anyway I'll try it right now.