In over my head as usual... Anyone have any idea why every drive I put in as slave on the primary IDE channel eventually winds up corrupted? Files turned into folders, files and folders with ascii characters for names, files that don't open - in short, just a mess... Would it be wise to assume I'm looking at a new motherboard here? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Hi. Assuming you always fit the IDE cable to the drives in the same position (Connector 1 to Drive 1 & Connector 2 to Drive 2), and it's only the slave drive that has problems, the most likely cause is the Cable Connection to the slave drive. If it was the motherboard, you'd almost certainly have a problem with the Master Drive too. Try a different IDE cable first. Good luck.

Have you tried the drive by itself or in another machine? It alsost sounds like it could be a bad drive. I have seen more than one board have a dead IDE channel but usually it starts to "spread" to other things in a short period of time. For example PCI slots start pooping out or the AGP slot goes dead, etc. Jimi_l

This is the 3rd drive to go bad in that slot, so I think it's relatively safe to rule out a bad drive. I can't try the drive by itself - it's the slave (no o/s)and I haven't tried the drive in another slot. Also seems, as usual, I've skipped the simple stuff - like trying a different cable. I have been messing with swapping drives a lot lately and may have damaged one of 'em. Thanks for the input, guys! I should be back tomorrow or the day after to post my findings on your suggestions

Your 2nd HDD should be installed as the 2ndary slave using an 80-wire IDE cable...don't pair it up with the HDD w/OS. Always use slave or master jumpers...don't use cable select If you have 3 devices: prim master = HDD w/OS prim slave = none 2ndary master = optical drive 2ndary slave = 2nd HDD If you have 4 devices: prim master = HDD w/OS prim slave = optical drive (CD or DVD-rom drive) 2ndary master = optical drive (CD/DVD burner) 2ndary slave = 2nd HDD Asus A7N8X-X 1800+ @8x210mhz 512mb PC3200 Ti4200/8X 128mb WDC 60GB

Hi, New IDE cables would be top of my list Use 80 wire cables if your drives require it. I keep an 80 wire cable spare as I have twice ahd cables fail causing chaos, only redolved with a new IDE cable. Next is BIOS battery Followed by BIOS upgrade Check jumper settings for master / slave or cable select on both drives on each channel. Don't mix these on an IDE channel. hth Ceri