Master/slave Issue In Bios? Or, User Error?

Master Slave issue in BIOS? Or, user error?

What needs to be changed, or done differently in order to use my old working D\ drive as my new M\ drive?

My story...

In addition to my current, working C\ SSD drive that has my OS, etc. on it, I have two other drives, both 1-TB HDD drives, D\ and R\, (and others like a Z\ 80GB SSD I use for a scratch disk with Photoshop, and a couple of USBs)

R\ began to fail horribly. (I have nice backups, whew!)


My idea was to replace the failing R\ drive with a new drive, so I bought a 1-TB SSD.

Since D\ has programs that run from that drive, I want the fast, new SSD to become D\.

Recap: New SSD becomes D\ and old D\ replaces the failing R\

I cloned my old working D\ to the new SSD with Macrium Reflect.


I powered down, removed the cables from the failing R\ drive , a SATA cable, and the ribbon from the power supply, and attached them to the new drive now in the next door bay, and powered up.

(I moved the SATA cable from a SATA 2 header to the SATA 3 on my MoBo so now my C\ and D\ SSDs occupy the SATA 3’s - I wonder if I need a different cable in order to utilize the SATA3 speed?)

The new SSD is now correctly recognized as my D\ drive, as planned.


Since I want to use my old, now unused, working, previously D\ drive to replace my failed R\ drive (for data), I opened Computer Management and changed the still attached drive’s letter to "M" (I’ll make it “R\” later, maybe)


My old D\drive, destined to be my M\ drive, is now visible in Computer Management as M\, but not by Windows Explorer.

What’s up with that?


Searching high and low, I ran across an issue I am completely clueless about.

Maybe that’s it? The Master Slave thing in BIOS. (Or, maybe I must format the old drive?)

I have attached a screenshot of my BIOS settings and ask for your comments.


I see that I have a ribbon running from the power supply serve to several drives.

The old order is like this: PSU>[empty connector]>R>D>Z(end).

After placing the new SSD into the open bay, the now order is this: PSU>[empty]>M>D>Z(end)


It looks like C\ has it’s own cable. (I can’t see one. Different kind of built-in bay.)


In Computer Management, here is what we see:


Disk

0 -C

1 -D

2 -M

3 -Z

4 -I (USB)

5 -F (Seagate 1 TB USB Expansion drive)

6 -G (USB Lazesoft)

(My 5 TB USB 3.0 external drive for backups is not attached at this time)


So, where have I screwed up?


What needs to be changed or done differently in order to use my old working D\ drive as my new M\ drive?


TIA


DrCarl

 

Nope, just took the new one out of the box, screwed it into an adapter to fit the bay and hooked it up. The old HDD was already hooked up, and I changed no pins or jumpers. Not even sure how to. Bottom line: changed no pins anywhere.

 

I had to read that a few times, to untangle......
You have cloned this drive- so it is full of the cloned stuff - I assume that you do not want anything off of it--- (you have 800gb of stuff on the, that you have already cloned)....
The clone of this drive is working O.K......
If that is the case...............................
Then format the old D drive, and allocate the Drive letter you want (M ,or, R) now. Changing hard drive letter has sometimes messed me up .over the years , so I would give it the drive letter you really want, now.

 

Can we back up a little?

"Master" and "Slave" are not BIOS issues.

SATA supports just 1 drive per cable therefore, they do not have Master and Slave settings.

Master and Slave ONLY apply to EIDE (PATA) drives, not SATA drives. This is because EIDE supports 2 drives per cable and per motherboard connector. When 2 drives are connected to an EIDE cable, the center drive is always the Slave. If only 1 EIDE drive is connected to an EIDE cable, it must always be a Master drive.

When setting jumpers, you must use CS (cable select) OR Master (MA) and Slave (SL). You cannot mix CS and MA/SL on the same cable.

So you need to physically configure jumpers on your EIDE drives (as CS or MA/SL) and connect your drives properly first, then you can deal with drive letters. The only issue in the BIOS is to make sure your boot drive is set at a higher priority (boot order) than other drives.

 

Sorry, my mind is tangled more than usual because I am clueless about this. So, maybe what I don't know CAN hurt me. lol?

While trying to figure this thing out, I ran across some mention about some drive having to be at the end of a cable...since some older systems had an optical drive in there somewhere. Again, sorry if I am being unclear, or mixing up terms or something. And thanks for your feedback. (gotta love MG)

Indeed. I did save what I need so changing the drive letter and retaining the data is just kind of a fun? thing? I was mildly interested in comparing what I saved with what is there just to be overly cautious.

Yes. The new SSD is now D:\ and is working OK.

Formatting is likely the solution with the added bonus of increasing my familiarity with SATA and master/slave issues.

Again, thanks for your feedback.

 

Had nothing to do with there being an optical. The "end of the cable" (opposite the motherboard connector end) is the "Master" connector. Remember, most older motherboards supported 4 EIDE drives through two EIDE interface connections supporting 2 drives on each cable. The Master on the first motherboard connector was typically used for the boot drive because the motherboard gives I/O priority to the Master on each interface. It was common to put the optical as slave but it was not a requirement. You could, if you wanted, use both cables for just 2 drives and have both as Master. Since they used different I/O interfaces, no conflicts.

Clear as mud, huh?

 

If the system board in question on your signature is the main board of this system, there are only SATA connections.

Do you have any drives with 40 metal pins on them?

 

Perhaps when I mentioned "ribbon" I should have said

 

That is my MoBo in the signature. I do not believe I have anything with 40 pins. More like 15.

Probably my error calling a power cable a ribbon.

 

That's it! That IS clear, and goes with what I couldn't quite recall having read elsewhere.

Thanks!

I hope we can backup a little - lol.
I am not sure how I lost most of my reply....sorry for the repetition if it shows up...

The reply I intended to post said that I don't believe I have anything that connects with what I now see are 40-pin EIDE (PATA) drives cables.
I think I only have SATA drives.
I think I was in error referring to the power cable as a ribbon. (It's kinda ribbon-ee). Sorry.
I also don't believe that I have any jumper issues with my drives.

Will probably have to just go ahead and format it.

Thank you for your consideration and input.

 

.
PHOTO REVISION - How embarrassing.
I really should proofread better.
Maybe I'm losing my mind.
I wish I could replace the photo, above, with this one, below...oh, well.
.

 

Now that we have established you do not have any EIDE/PATA type drives (which we moved beyond over ten years ago) we can get down to understanding why your BIOS sees PATA/EIDE drives.

 

Nice motherboard- has One IDE cable ,Four SATA cables according to the manual.
http://download.gigabyte.us/FileList/Manual/mb_manual_ga-x58a-ud3r_v2.0_e.pdf

 

I am pretty sure you are mostly correct. As indicated on Page 7, (my marked up screenshot attached), I do see one IDE header on the MoBo.

The manual's drawing of the SATA connectors shows the row, yet there are really two connectors at each position, two connectors tall.

Although I am not sure if they are all supported at the same time (I don't understand chips and bridges), I do see TEN places to plug in a SATA cable!

I have 4 plugged in now (the other drives are plugged the USB 3 slots, one 5-TB for backups, and one 1-TB)

I have not formatted the soon to be "M" drive yet. That's probably next, I guess.

I hope my BIOS is, well, you know, perfect.
I hope I have things set to take advantage of my two SATA 3 drives and connectors
(all I did was plug the big SSDs (C:\ and D:\) into the SATA 3 connectors - hope that's all that's needed)


(Now I've also developed some registry error problems, and will begin a separate thread for that. I don't think it's related)

 

It looks like you will have to manually set the M:\ drive to "Large Drive".

This is a very capable board which bridges technologies, but it still needs to be properly directed. The flipside is that the SATA2 channels may not be able to recognize a 1TB HDD. In that case, it will need to be partitioned to a manageable size.

The lack of recognition would more likely be a mobo limitation, not an OS limitation.

 

For many months, the SATA2 channels seem to be OK with the two 1-TB HDDs and the one 1-TB SSD. So I think that's a good thing.

I''ve just changed one of the HDDs to a SSD...same size...

Where and how to I set the M:\ to "large drive"? Disk Management?

 

That setting is in the BIOS. The information can be referenced in your manual on page 49. Auto is preferable.

Did you format the drive to a file system which Windows recognizes?

 

P.S. What are the make/model for the SSD drives?

 

From page 50 of your manual
" IDE Channel 2, 3 Master, 4, 5, 6 Master/Slave, 7 Master, 9 Master/Slave Extended IDE Drive Configure your IDE/SATA devices by using one of the two methods below: • Auto Lets the BIOS automatically detect IDE/SATA devices during the POST. (Default) • None If no IDE/SATA devices are used, set this item to None so the system will skip the detection of the device during the POST for faster system startup. Access Mode Sets the hard drive access mode. Options are: Auto (default), Large. The following fields display your hard drive specifications. If you wish to enter the parameters manually"
In the manual, it explains that you can attach a floppy drive (hence IDE plug)
If all are set to auto, your motherboard should configure them all for you,

as mechanic said
If I was still building pc's, I would love that motherboard. I doubt I will build any more, at my age, but if I even think about it..........

 

Yep. Thanks for the clarity. I like it when Auto happens. Still have to format that drive....here goes!

(It's a hangover from my 1984 DOS days. Almost afraid to even SAY the word, format - lol)

 

The new one for D:\ is a SanDisk, the little bit older one running my C:\ is a Samsung...I forget what the teeny 80 GB one is. Maybe Belarc will tell me.

3079.58 Gigabytes Usable Hard Drive Capacity (and my 1-TB Seagate USB and 5-TB external USB are not attached for this report)
598.95 Gigabytes Hard Drive Free Space

ATAPI DVD A DH24AAS [Optical drive]

will be formatted, then M:\ Hitachi HDS721010CLA332 [Hard drive] (1000.20 GB) -- drive 2, s/n JP2921HQ0M55HA, rev JP4OA39C, SMARTStatus: Healthy

Z:\ INTEL SSDSA2M080G2GN [Hard drive] (80.03 GB) -- drive 3, s/n CVPO9491044T080BGN, rev 2CV102HA, SMARTStatus: Healthy

C:\ Samsung SSD 850 EVO 1TB [Hard drive] (1000.20 GB) -- drive 0, s/n S2RFNXAH303578X, rev EMT02B6Q, SMARTStatus: Healthy

D:\ SanDisk SDSSDH31000G (1000.20 GB) -- drive 1, s/n 173286420482, rev X61110RL, SMART Status: Healthy

 

Formatted..."M:\" still not recognized by Windows Explorer.

Other issues that remain, some unrelated

unable to restore registry (data was not successfully written...open keys,... insufficient privileges) see other thread
used Process Monitor to see if I could find "locked" processes.
found a few, msmpeng.exe, something about suparantispyware something, and wmiprvse.exe
did not do anything with those; I am curious, but clueless
wonder if I must disable Windows Defender in order to import registry
wonder why Windows Explorer shows two instances of all of my drives, there is a repeat of
hundreds errors: event viewer>windows logs>system ID 10016, - problem with runtimebroker.exe
computer user too sleepy to taypeddasjp s9u asd9u8979dapiiiiiiiiizzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

 

I would sort out the registry issues before doing anything else -
The formatting- If doing through Windows management, did you initialize the disk ?
At the moment, Does it show in management as unallocated ?

 

I never did initialize it. In fact, I've never even unplugged it.
The invisible drive used to be D:\ (which I cloned to, and replaced with a new SSD that's working fine)
Currently, there is no initialize option on the right click menu.
Yesterday, I just right-clicked and picked "format" (quick format and allow compression unchecked).
After a while, it sits there as M:\, a Healthy (Primary Partition).
There is only a part of my C:\ that's unallocated. This drive appears to be allocated.
I don't know if I should make it "Active" or not.
Within Disk Management, right-click and "explore" shows the contents of the drive (System Volume Information), yet the drive is still invisible within regular Windows Explorer.
Before the format, right-click 'explore' showed all the files that were there, those that I cloned to the new SSD.
Am working on the registry challenge now.
Thanks for the help.

 

Solved?

This is weird. For grins I changed the drive letter in Disk Management to "N" and it magically appeared in Windows.
I named it back to "M" and it's gone again.
I named it to "S" and it's fully recognized by Windows.
What's up with that?

Although it's really a work-around, there are plenty of letters left - far more than the number of drives I have.

Moving on...(always with gratitude to MG)

Now a small portion of my life can continue.

 

Changing the drive letter, as I said earlier had caused me problems , over the years- what I normally do is just allow windows to designate the letter when formatting. With hindsight, I should have suggested you did that, but as you wanted M, or, R, I did not. It may be that another drive was allotted that letter (even a usb stick) and it was still in the cache (I use advanced system care to remove old connections held in that way, as sometimes the usb connections will play up,if it has not released them) -That is from personal experience..I have to ask- "did you try to allocate it as R ? - as I believe you connected it to that position where R power connector was. I would have expected it to work as R.

I would have said don't mark it active, as this might have caused difficulties on start up .
Well done -

 

It has been awhile since I messed with drive letters but what I found works for me is to use letters way out in the alphabet for some drives or partitions when I first set up my computers. For example, I traditionally make my optical drives "Q" (and "V" if I have two).

For my music (I have 600 CDs transferred to disk), they are on "M" drive. Photos are on a "P" partition. This gives lots of room for drive letter "shifting" that often occurs when temporary or portable storage devices are connected and disconnected, like USB sticks, cameras, cell phone, even my Garmin GPS and my Omron blood pressure meter.

 

drcarl
To clear those no longer attached usb etc: and avoid possible recurrences of drive allocation problems, I would keep this one handy
https://forums.majorgeeks.com/threads/device-cleanup-tool-can-remove-non-present-devices.314288/
(I use that other program that I mentioned (Advanced System Care) But this small tool may help you.

 

Yikes, this got long winded!
And guys, anytime you do a true clone of an existing drive, Windows complains about their being duplicate and conflicting then refuses to mount whichever one is further down the food chain, in this case the SATA port he is using.
The fix is simple; go to disk management and delete ALL of the partitions on the old "Q" drive, then create a new partition and format it. Voila, problem solved.
P.S. I have personally seen and fixed this problem several times.

 

Yup - I'm not known for brevity, that's for sure. In fact, just the other day I was out walking and....lol

Blows my mind how much time I used up because I picked "M" instead of any other letter.

Thanks to all of you for the valuable insight, and tools.

Gotta love MGs

 

M didn't matter; it was the fact that it had the same volume serial number and label.
FYI, if it ever really is an antique master slave issue, either one drive doesn't appear at all or it's flakey as h*ll; but, all of those issues are at least 15 years old.