Try installing both as Masters on separate cables. Make sure to use 80 wire cables. Also verify both IDE channels are Enabled. Did you just swap boards and boot up? Repair install? You probably need to install MBoard drivers for the new board.

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It doesn't make any differemce whether you use master/slave or cable select jumpering on the drive - you just don't mix the two on the same data cable, and the drive designated as master should be a bootable one (if you use cable select jumpering, master is the one on the end connector, slave is the one on the middle onnector, on a 3 connector data cable). If you have two different brands of drives, or an older and a newer one, whether you need a jumper on pins for master or slave and in what position varies - make sure they're set right. However, if the bios detects both drives no problem, your jumpers are probably ok. I'm assumimg the bios Setup is set to Auto detect the drives by the Auto or LBA method. If the method is other than Auto or LBA, the bios will still recognize the hard drive, but if the drives are larger than 512mb or 2.1 gb, the mboard and operating system may not detect that a bootable drive is bootable. "The boot order is: Floppy HD1 HD2" Check to see if you can select HD0 - if you can, that must be the first hard drive, not HD1! Also look to see if there is a list of hard drives - that's usually on the same page as the boot order settings. The first drive listed must be the one that is bootable e.g. in recent bioses they are often listed by their model number. A good way to set the boot order, if you can do it, is floppy first, CD drive seond, a hard drive third. If you can set it that way, you usually do not need to change it - it works for all three boot situations. The CD drive does not have to be first in order to boot from it as long as it is before the hard drive. In all the bioses I've tried it in, a bootable floppy in a floppy drive will not be recognozed if it is listed after the CD drive in the boot order. I've heard of a few bioses where that doesn't matter, but they are rare. I recommend you install a floppy drive. It is good have for emergencies, even if you don't normally use one. If you don't have one, they are cheap new. If you case has no floppy drive slot, keep a floppy drive and data cable handy so you can connect it if you have an emergency situation. " Upon bootup he’s got a dos menu that appears prompting the user to pick one of the 2 bootups. Each of which runs off a different HD" The drive that was master before when that worked before must be master now. The Dos progranm is a boot manager - it's in a tiny partition on the drive and only that is bootable when you first boot - it enables one or the other drive to boot it's operating system, not both. So , although both drive's operating systems are bootable, only the partition the boot manager program is on is bootable when you first boot, and when it selects an operating system, only one is bootable at a time. If you have the wrong drive designated as master in the bios boot order, it is not bootable. " Only one IDE slot on the mobo (same as ‘header’ I assume?)." It can be called an IDE socket if it has a shroud around it, but it's never a slot. Card slots or ram slots are slots. "(Do they sell longer ribbons?)" Yes, but is recommended you use one no longer than about 15" for 80 wire data cables - move the drives in the case instead to suit if you can. 80 wire cables are easily damaged at the edges when you contrort them, and are a lot more prone to nicks in the edge severing a wire. "Also just to be clear I always put the Master on the end of the chain as the drive mfg specifies." That is only necessary if you use cable select jumpering on the drives. Manufacturers often want you to use cable select jumpering, but I find it is often a pain in the awrse because of the very thing you are encountering - you too often either have to contort the data cable, or flip or move hard drives, in order to connect them so the two drives are on the proper connector. With master / slave jumpering it does not matter whether you connect it to the middle or the end connector on a 3 connector data cable. Sometimes the manufacturer supplied cables have mboard, slave, master printed on the cable next to the connectors - ignore that for master ans slave jumpering, for the middle and end connectors. Again, the proper connector must be connected to the mboard if it's an 80 wire cable - that's usually blue on an 80 wire cable (it almost always makes no difference if its a 40 wire cable). It is possible a data cable is meant for only cable selet jumpering - in that case one wire is not conneted to one of the connectors for the drives - but I have never come across one that is an 80 wire cable, in a brand name system, or included with a mboard, or a generic one bought separately.

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Thanks for the battery idea. I'll keep it mind. It is a new board though. So I will try making the other drive a separate master. Already did that with the existing master. As to 80 pin cable- all ports are 40 pin so I can't use 80 pin, right? Also, all IDE CHannels are enabled in the BIOS. As to your other question: When I replaced the board I followed the manual and I went to the BIOS and it autodetected the dual hard drives. I didn't change anything but the time and date. I then connected just one Hard Drive and the CD drive (only 2 IDE devices at a time) and inserted the CD from the Mobo Mfg. The only specific driver I loaded was the nic driver. Not sure how much else was loaded automatically. Windows NT 2000 also detected new devices and selected drivers to make them work. (Of course the hard drive drivers were already working). I guess, one overriding aspect of all this is that everything was working fine yesterday- so things such as drivers and BIOS settings were sufficient then and remain unchanged. Thanks. Having to fix broken stuff is an effective but tough way of learning. Perhaps all of life is like that...

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What was the last thing you did before you first had this problem? It's possible that some event damaged your Dos boot loader program such that no partition is bootable. You may need to get that program and repair it (you may need to connect a floppy drive in order to do that). There's no such thing as an 80 "pin" IDE data cable, or an 80 pin IDE header. The connectors for both 40 wire and 80 wire cables have 40 obvious positions, and there are 39 (or 40 on older mboards) pins on the IDE headers - on UDMA 100/133 cables one pin hole is blocked on the connectors so it can fit only one way on the IDE header pins (on newer mboards, one pin is missing)- UDMA 66 cable connectors usually have no blocked pin holes, so they can sometimes be installed on the pins the right way or the wrong way. On 80 wire able connectors, there are 40 (or approaching that) extra connections (all grounds?) in the middle of the connector on the back side next to the cable where you can'tt easily see them. Drivers have no effect until the operating system is loaded so they cannot affect whether the drive boots or not, if it is an IDE drive. Bioses often come set by default so all the drive controllers are in IDE compatible mode, including the SATA ones, so that you don't need to install SATA drivers during Setup and Setup sees the SATA drives no problem.

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Thanks for all the info. So, as a reminder, I can only have either both hard drives hooked up via IDE or one hard drive and the CD hooked up via IDE. Can't have all 3. So the last thing I did before it broke: With one hard drive and the CD hooked up I started the box up fine and got to my friend’s ‘boot options’ menu in dos. But I picked the boot option that accessed the drive that was not connected. I obviously got an error. So then I switched the IDE ribbon so that both hard drives were hooked up. That's when I started getting this error. ('Insert bootable disk yada,yada..') As an experiment I then switched back to the 'one hard drive & CD' IDE combo and the error remained. I've played with 2 different ribbons and triple checked all the connections trying to get it going- but no luck. As to a bootup disk, the OS is NT 2000 and I don't have one and I also don't have a floppy drive. But I may have to take care of that to fix this. Thanks. Having to fix broken stuff is an effective but tough way of learning. Perhaps all of life is like that...

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Then change the Master jumper to slave and the slave jumper to Master. The wrong drive is set as the boot drive.

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When you pointed to the drive that was not connected, the boot loader was supposed to activate it's bootability but could not - after that, no partition was bootable. The drive that was not connected would not be bootable either, so OtheHill's suggestion will not work In that case, this applies. "It's possible that some event damaged your Dos boot loader program such that no partition is bootable. You may need to get that program and repair it (you may need to connect a floppy drive in order to do that)." A boot loader program transfers bootability to the operating system you want to boot. When you shut down the operating sytem you booted the bootability is transferred back to the tiny partition the boot loader program is on. If you're not sure what program that was, you can use a program such as the Dos bootable version of Partition Magic 8.x, to make the tiny partition the boot loader is on bootable again. If you know anyone who has the Partition Magic 8.x CD, you can make the two floppy dos bootable set by running Setup in the \RescueMe folder. If you don't you may be able to download a trial version of the CD from the web, and make it with that. ..... You can get adapter kits for as little as $20 to convert an IDE drive's data connection so that it can be used on a SATA header, or you can get a PCI EIDE hard drive controller card for as liitle as $30 or less and connect as many as 4 IDE drives to that (but make sure it supports ATAPI if you want to connect an optical drive to it), or you cound get a brand new SATA connected optical drive for as little as $40 or less.

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Thanks for all the comments which I appreciate very much. Lots of considerations here. Unfortunately, I came back tonight and went to plug in a new 25 ft IDE cable and discovered that this one was missing the 'notch' in the middle. So I'll have to return it tomorrow. I'll see if that works and if it doesn't I'll work through the other options and suggestions. The lost bootability is an interesting thing. I'll pursue that one as well. By the way, I bought sata adapters for the IDE drives- but they didn't work. Having to fix broken stuff is an effective but tough way of learning. Perhaps all of life is like that...

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I assume you meant 25" cable? By notch, you mean the bump to orientate the connector? That is not necessary. The red stripe on the edge of the cable goes toward the pwer connector.

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You don't necessarily need a longer data cable - see response 8! The projection on one side of the connector is not mandatory. If one pin hole is blocked in the connectors it will only go on the 39 pins one way. If they have no blocked pin holes, you have a UDMA 66 cable, and the connectors can go on either way - one way works - the other way does not, unless all the connectors are on the IDE pins backwards. It does not hurt the hard drive or the mboard if a data cable connector is installed backwards - the pinout wiring was deliberately designed to prevent that - same goes for floppy data cables - unless there is no shroud (socket) on the mboard (or the floppy drive) and you don't get the connector on the pins properly. The striped side of the cable goes to the pin 1 end of the mboard IDE header/socket - there is usually a 1 or a triangle or arrowhead printed on the mboard on that end, or see the mboard manual. On the drives, the striped side almost always goes next to the power connector socket. The data cable will also work with the drives if all the connectors are installed backwards, when that's possible. UDMA 100/133 data cables always have one blocked pin hole in the connectors, and usually also have the projection on one side of the connectors - they can only be installed one way. ..... "By the way, I bought sata adapters for the IDE drives- but they didn't work." Usually the IDE drive must be jumpered as master in order for them to work - was it / were they? Also, if you connect an optical drive to it, the adapter must support ATAPI - if it does it will say in it's description that it does, or that it works with optical (CD or DVD) drives. On many mboards, you can't boot a drive from every SATA header, just some of them - see your mboard manual. If that's your case, the SATA headers are sometimes two different colors. A PCI EIDE (sometimes called PATA these days) drive controller card always works, but make sure it supports ATAPI if you want to connect an optical drive to it. (e.g. Silicon Image chipsets do; Promise chipsets often DO NOT). They always come with at least one, if not two, standard length 80 wire UDMA 100/133 data cables.

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Thanks again for your comments, suggestions and help. There has been alot written. Here are facts / answers / conclusions : Tried a new ribbon but no luck. By the way it is a 25 INCH rather than a 25 FOOT ribbon. I'm saving the 25 FOOT one for a networking project... Tried connecting each separately as master. No luck. Master in last setup is master in this setup. Yep the BIOS is set to autodetect Tried booting from both drives (F11 on bootup and select from menu)NO luck. The terms ‘HD1’ & ‘HD2’ don’t actually appear on the bootup order screen. That was just my shorthand. What appears is the same number for both drives like:5934768A (I made that up too) Looks liker the drives are being detected as 'Mass Storage Devices'. A message to that effect appears for a (painfully) short instant just before it asks me for a bootable source. This is after it detects the drives and apparently tries to boot from them for about 15 seconds. Yep, I'll install a floppy. And a DVD too. (If I knew I'd be essentially building my own computer instead of spending $100 to resurrect a broken one I would have done all this differently. Actually, I would have just bought a new one...) Drives are identical Seagate HDs. Here’s the manual: http://www.seagate.com/support/disc... I tried connecting a master to SATA in several of my 4 sockets but that did not work. As suggested, it's gotta be that the bootability was somehow wiped out for both drives and that I need that 'Partition Magic' Program. Problem is, I don't really know nor understand the set up I'm trying to restore in all its minutiae. If I get this 'Partition Magic' Program will it pretty seamlessly fix the bootability issue and restore the prior setup? Or is there a slew of precise parameters and settings that I must know before hand?(feel my pain) I would love to restore this computer with all the program on the disks, But buying a big SATA drive and starting from scratch is getting tempting. Only problem will be rounding up the software. Thanks. Having to fix broken stuff is an effective but tough way of learning. Perhaps all of life is like that...

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If your bios detects both hard drives properly there's no problem with the connection or jumpering of the drives. ... Side notes... - Some mboards have some SATA headers, such that, if you connect a drive to that header, it cannot be booted from - I took a look at your mboard manual and that does not apply to your 4 SATA headers. - Also found in your mboard manual - in your bios Setup, under the heading Integrated Peripherals - SATA Mode that can be set to any of SATA, or RAID, or AHCI mode. Most bioses for mboards with SATA controllers have a similar setting where you can set IDE compatible mode or similar for the SATA - in that case you don't need to load SATA controller drivers near the beginning of Windows 2000 or XP Setup, and Setup will be able to see the SATA hard drives fine; otherwise, you have to load the SATA drivers from a floppy disk near the beginning of Windows 2000 or XP Setup, after pressing F6 (I do not know if that applies to Vista too), because Setup will not be able to see the SATA hard drive(s) otherwise. Going by what I see in your bios, at least there, it appears you do not have the option of IDE compatible mode or similar for any of those modes. In that case, you MUST connect a floppy drive, and have a floppy disk in it with the proper SATA drivers on it. Setup cannot look for drive controller drivers anywhere else at that point in Setup, including on a CD, on a hard drive, or on a USB connected drive. In your case, the required floppy disk with the SATA drivers on it can probably be made using a program on the CD that came with the mboard, or you could go to the Intel web site and get the same thing for your particular main chipset. ... Carrying on with what I said in response 13.... Your problem is probably no partition is presently "flagged" as bootable, because you tried to boot a partition on drive that was not installed at the time. All the data is probably still on the drives - you probably just need to make the partition the Dos boot Manager program is on bootable again. You can use any program that restores the bootability of the partition the Dos boot manager is on. If you can still contact you friend who set up the Dos boot manager program, he probably knows what he used, and may still have the floppy or CD that set it up. Usually all you need to do is boot from a floppy with that program, and retiore the bootability of the partition the boot manger is installed on. If that's not an option..... I suggested using Partition Magic because I am very familiar with it. All it takes for a partition to be "flagged" as bootable is a byte, or a few bytes, has/have to be set a certain way. Any program I call generically a partition manipulation program is probably capable of setting or un-setting bootability just as Partition Magic can. Since Partition Magic 8.x is one of the more popular ones, I thought maybe you would know of it, or have it, or know someone else who has it. (You may be able to download a limited time trial version of it from the Symantec web site, but some features may be crippled until it is paid for .) I searched on Yahoo for: free partition manager , without quotes - some "hits" are for limited time trial versions of programs you pay for (some features may be crippled), and some are freeware (but many of those have limitations). Here are a few freeware programs you could try - I have NOT tried them myself: Partition Logic Free program similar to Partition Magic http://www.partitionlogic.org.uk/ "Partition logic has the following limitations:" (Excerpts) "Does not work with some SATA hard disks" "Cannot format partitions as NTFS or EXT3. Can format as FAT (12/16/32), EXT2, and Linux swap." "Cannot resize FAT or EXT filesystems. Can resize NTFS (Windows XP) and Linux swap. " .... Ranish Partition Manager http://www.ranish.com/part/ (As usual, this version is for EXPERIENCED USERS ONLY! If you are new to RPM, I suggest you read the URL http://www.trombettworks.com/multi-... *completely*) .... Cute's Partition Manager http://www.cutepm.com/ ...... You need something that can set or toggle on/off which partition on a physical hard drive is bootable - only one can be at a time on any physical hard drive (and 2000 and above only allow one partition at a time on your computer to be bootable as well at a time, if the partitions with an operating system on them were visible to the operating system when Setup was run). What you will probably see is one of the hard drives has a tiny partition - usually it's the first one on the physical drive - that's the partition with the Dos boot manager program on it that "transfers" bootability to either of the two partitions with the operating systems on them you have. If you make that tiny partition bootable, your Dos boot manger program will boot as before. The drive that tiny partition is on must boot first in your boot order. Since it is the drive models that are listed in your bios Setup, and they are identical? in your case, if one boot order of hard drives doesn't boot the Dos boot manager partition, the other one will. NOTE that a bootable partition must the "flagged" as Active - only one partition on a physical hard drive can be Active at a time - but it is not, optionally, bootable unless it has an operating system installed on it. In the case of Dos, all that is required is to install a few system files; in the case of 9x and up, that cannot be done - you must install the whole operating system (the default), or at least the core part of it (you would need to dig up that info on the web).

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Mr TubesandAndWires: Your considerable advice is very appreciated and, jeez, your knowledge is truly voluminous. You don't happen to work in IT do you?? ;>) I got pulled away from this project a bit and I gotta go buy a used floppy (or get one off a junker) and try your suggestions. I'll let you know how it turns out. Think I'm gonna buy a big SATA drive in a few days no matter what... Thanks again. Having to fix broken stuff is an effective but tough way of learning. Perhaps all of life is like that...

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"You don't happen to work in IT do you?? ;>)" No I don't. I've had no formal training at all regarding computers - personal computers did not exist when I went to school. I've just had a lot of experience since 1989 or so with various computer related stuff, have troubleshooted problems on friend's and relative's computers and computers of people they know as well as my own, and have accumlated a lot of info about computers as well from the web including from other people who answer questions on sites similar to this one. I find it frustrating that too many answers to questions I find on the web don't supply enough information for those who aren't aware of the background details, so I tend to supply more detail in my answers - better too much info in some people's opinion than not enough for those who don't know. You would have had the same problem with two SATA drives in the same situation if you had done the same thing.

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