Hi, is slavery over? I got a new hard disk and I tried to connect it to my PC. My original PC setting: on IDE1 old hardisk (jumber on master) on IDE2 two CDROM drives (jumbers on cableselect) New setting: on IDE1 old harddisk (jumber master) a CDROM (jumber cableselect) on IDE2 new harddisk (jumber master) a CDROM (jumber cableselect) then the nightmare of the system only detecting my old hard disk on IDE1 and only CDROM on IDE2. After trying many combinations of jumper settings (I assure you correct settings) things that I notice is LONG time to detect my hard disk or CDROM on the channels and after detection BIOS would seem to crash ie garbled characters on the top of the screen and system freezes. Other wired things, it would sometimes detect the disk names as @H or [H with some garbled characters all over the screen. Oh, I did try the disk on some other computer, but it just seems that the Master/Slave jumbers are not working on only cableselect is working. finaly the system settled both hard disks on IDE1 and both on cableselect and both CDROMs on IDE2 and on of them on cableselect and the other on master. What could be the problem? All drives seem work correctly and no data is lost.

Don't mix Master/Slave and Cable select. Use one or the other. I suggest using Master/Slave. Change the cable selects to Slave. Do yourself a favor BACKUP!

Ham's suggestion is good. However would also suggest checking HDD's as some have strap settings:- a) Master b) Master with Slave c) Slave d) Cable Select With cable select, the master device uses the end ide connector and the slave uses the middle. This does not apply, when master and slave strap settings are used. Often this is better due to device position in pc and/or connector accessability. Good Luck - Keep us posted.

I never ever use cable select... Only use master and slave like ham30 said... you will never go wrong... Remember, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing... a lot is ever worse :) Keepsakes for Keeps http://www.pctec.ca/