Hard Disk problem

I can't boot win98SE if my two hard disk are connected. I have tried to keep my hard disk with windoes and connect another hard disk and windows boot without any problem. I have tried both hard disk on another computer and still no problem.

What can I do?
My motherboard is a gigabyte GA-6VXC7X-4X-P.

Thank you.

 

make sure that one drive is master and one drive is slave ( if on the same cable) else...go in bios...the specify wich drive to boot from

 

Do you have an OS on each drive?

 

There are set as master and slave if I try connected to the same IDE cable.
And both master if connected to different IDE cable.
The hard disk without my OS was formatted and I even erased the partition to make a new one. But still the same problem.

 

just make sure that the harddrive *with* the OS is setup as *master* and that the drive *without* the os is setup as *slave*

should work

also make sure that your hdd are properly recognized by your bios

 

The drive with th OS is set as master and the other one as slave when connected to the same IDE cable.
The bios detects both fine.

So I really don't know what to do.

 

What is the model of each drive?

 

1- DiamondMax Plus 60 7200rpm 20 gig at IDE model: 5T020H2d (with OS)

2- Quantum FireBall Plus 3.5 Cx Series 13.0 AT gig IDE 5400rpm

 

Have you tried setting the slave drive without the OS installed to cable select. This may or may not be automaticaly picked up as a slave drive. If this does not work then try setting both drives to cable select they should be picked up as master and slave. I had a similar problem and this worked for me. Good luck.

 

Thanks for the help, but as far for trying master/slave jumper on 1 or 2 IDE cable, I tried everything.

 

Make sure in BIOS you set what drive you want it to boot off of. The bios should say boot order or something along that line and make sure C: is one of them or HDD-0 is selected. If this doesn't work then the IDE controller built into the motherboard may be failing and it may be time to upgrade soon.

 

The strange thing is with the same hard disk with the "OS" and a different second hard disk, evenything works fine ...

 

You say both drives work fine in other machines. Have you tested both in the master/slave configuration you want to use in other machines? For instance, if you're setting the Quantum up as slave in the machine you want to use, does that drive work as a slave in another machine?

Have you tried reversing the configuration between the two drives, i.e., making the master the slave, and vice-versa?

I'd have thought that incompatibilities between different drives on the same IDE channel was a thing of the past. But perhaps that's not so. That Quantum drive is a bit older than the Maxtor, even if Maxtor did swallow Quantum.

 

On the other computer, I tried the same order master/slave.
I did not tried the second hard drive (quantum) as master because there is not a OS on it.

 

I finally solve my problem.
Instead of uptdating my bios, I putted an older version of the software and it worked! Isn't it weird?

Thank you to all who tried to help me.

 

Yup. That's weird.

I wonder if the DMA settings in the Win98 installation were wrong for the uncooperative hard drive.... ?

Nah. I don't really believe that. Both drives should have been DMA-capable. (But I haven't checked....)

If you ever figure out what was doing it, let us know.