I just bought a WD 160 GB HD and have it with no jumper settings running by itself. I want to put a old Deskstar HD which died and i want to see if i can recover some files as a slave drive and cant figure out the right jumper settings. I need jumper settings for both HD's please if you can help thanks!

The jumper settings for the 160 gig are probably on its label. But generally WD settings are: Single drive. . . no jumper or jumper in spare position. Master (first of two drives on the cable). . . jumper at master Slave (second of two drives on the cable). . . jumper at slave Cable select (drive's position on the cable determines its designation). . . jumper at CS. What's the model number of the deskstar? Since the WD is probably on a Raid (or similar) controller you may want to connect the deskstar to the secondary controller.

AFAIK, there are labels on most if not all modern disks illustrating the jumper arrangements for the applicable disk - see if you can read it. The Secret Letter From Iraq

if the wd160 is on the primary IDE socket, put the deskstar on the secondary IDE socket, you will then NOT have to touch the jumpers on the wd160. Re the labels on hard discs showing jumper positions - they can be confusing as some assume you are holding the disc with label face down when looking at the jumpers and some assume you have the label face up.

See if this helps also Deskstar or this " Please Post back to let us know if we helped "

Ya i tried all of this guys but its not working, i understand what you mean but no matter what jumper setting or ide hookup i use it says it cant find my hd in the bios , an unknown device, therefore I cant recover files once in windows. Any more suggestions? Thanks again.

Where is it showing as an 'unknown device'? You originally said the deskstar had died. I took that to mean the OS had crashed since you were trying to recover files on it by slaving it in another system. But if the drive is physically dead then there's not much you can do. I can remember having a problem with some old Conner 30 meg drives being seen right by newer systems--but they were seen, just not in a way in which I could recover any data. The model number would be helpful.