difference between 8-pin HD and 10-pin???

[Anonymous]

just bought new hd, Western Digital Caviar 40GB. I put the new hd in my Dell 733 P3, 192 SDRAM, geforce 4 MX runnin XP Pro..runs fine...

Now here's the problem...
My old computer is a compaq presario 5120 with cyrix 266 & 128 SDIMM
its hard drive went bust, so i cleared out my old 7.4 Gb HD from the dell and moved it to the compaq. the compaqs original Hd was a seagate with 4.3 GB but it only had 8 jumper pins, while both the maxtor, and western digital HDs had 10 pins...

i had to use to jumper covers, in slots 3-4 & 5-6, in order to get the compaq the recognize the drive. i was able to partition and format the using the win98 startup disk. but then while installin windows, it says the operating system cannot find a properly formatted hard disk.. I've use several versions windows(98 B, 98 SE, 2000 Pro, and XP Pro). could the jumper pins be the problem, and if they are how would i fix them?
thanx in advance

[mcgeeb1215]

There is no difference in the number of pins for the jumpers. All you need to do is look at the label on the hard drive for which way to set you hard drive for the Master setting assuming that is the only hard drive you are putting on that computer.
Second of all, go into your CMOS and use autodetect if your hard drive isn't showing. Either press F8, F2, or Delete key to get into your CMOS. Do that after you reboot your computer. If Autodetect doesn't work, your hard drive may not be plugged in properly.
Also make sure when you format your hard drive to use the command Format C:/S so the system files get copied to your hard drive. Also make sure when your in Fdisk to make sure you make your partition "Active".

[Anonymous]

thanx, but ive tried that...im lookin at my connections now, theyre solid.
my CMOS is SHIFT+F10... i went in and i swear to god it has no options for autodetect, or anything about the hard drive at all 8O . WTF!!!!
its frustrating, im about to take into my backyard and pull an officcespace on it :twisted: :twisted: ...HELP!
thanx

[mcgeeb1215]

Ok, if you have a Phoenix BIOS, the hard drive would be listed under the Main Menu, listed under primary master and should show the hard drive amount. The screen will look something like this or maylook like this.

System Time:
System Date:

Legacy Diskette A:
Legacy Diskette B:

Primary Master (XXXXMB)
Primary Slave
Secondary Master (CDrom)
Secondary Slave

Keyboard features



System Memory: 640KB
Extended Memory XXXXMB
Language English

Hit the enter button under primary master and the next screen should show you hard drive information. The the TYPE under AUTO.
But it all depends on the version of Phoenix you have.


Award BOIS might look like this

Date XX:XX:XX
Time XX:XX:XX

IDE Primary Master Press Enter XXXXXMB
IDE Primary Slave Press Enter XXXXXMB
IDE Secondary Master Press Enter None
IDE Secondary Master Press Enter None

Drive A 1.44MB, 3.5in
Drive b None
Floppy 3 Mode Support Disabled


Video EGA/VGA
Halt On All, but Keyboard

Base Memory 640K
Extended Memory XXXXXXXK
Total Memory XXXXXXXK


Also on the main menu of the Award BIOS, there should be a menu for IDE HDD Auto Detection.

Basically if you drive doesn't show up somewhere in your BIOS, its probably not hooked up right. Perhaps your jumpers for your Slave/Master/Cable select aren't set up right. Also unless you hard drive is really really old, you would have to enter the cylinder,Head, and sector numbers into your CMOS.

[Anonymous]

sorry it took so long to reply... i tried your suggestions... turns out i had my jumpers wrongs all along. After changing the jumpers i still had to manually enter the cylinder heads and such, but everything turned out ok.

THANX