got my new computer setup finally after 2 days of fiddling with it. turns out BIOS doesn't recognize ATA drives, b/c they're considered to be SCSI/RAID drives. of course the drivers for the ATA are on a cd, and the computer doesnt have an option to look for a cd. i had to boot from a 98 system disk to get to the A prompt & copy them to a blank floppy & install from there & then windows would recognize that i do have a hard disk installed.

so now here is my problem. i'm trying to set up my secondary hard drive as an IDE drive. the problem is that since BIOS doesn't recognize ATA drives, when i enable the IDE drive there, whether its master, slave, etc, the computer thinks its the only drive on the computer & tries to boot from it, causing it to hang. is there a way to make an IDE drive a slave with an ATA master? thanks a lot.

here's my specs:
CPU: AMD Athlon 64, 3000+ 800Mhz FSB
Motherboard: Gigabyte, Athlon 64, NVIDIA chipset, GA-K8N PRO Motherboard
Memory: 512MB PC3200 400MHZ DDR RAM Memory
Video: EVGA NVIDIA GeForce FX5600XT 256MB DDR-RAM 8X AGP w/ TV-Out
Audio: Sound Blaster compatible AC97 3D sound
Hard Drive: Western Digital 120.0GB Hard Drive 8Mb Cache 7200 RPM SATA 150Mbs/sec
CD-RW/DVD: TDK, Dual Format 4X DVD+-R/RW and CD-R/RW, IDE

According to Gig-byte you motherboard does support UDMA ATA drives as well as an ATA Raid Controller and Serial ATA.

Are you sure you are not plugging the ATA drive into the RAID controller.

http://tw.giga-byte.com/MotherBoard/Products/Products_Spec_GA-K8N%20Pro.htm

Stuart

I think you may be a little confused. ATA drives are not considered SCSI/RAID drives. SCSI drives are totally different. Any drive can run in a RAID configuration if the motherboard has RAID capabilities. ATA drives run on an IDE connection, which is a parallel connection. Parallel allows two drives per channel. SATA drives run on a SATA controller, which is serial (SATA=serial ATA). SATA drives run faster than the fastest ATA drives therefore motherboard makers are currently building RAID capable MBs configured with SATA controllers for the RAID configuration. The MB you have was designed for business use. It is configured a little differently. You have 2 SATA controllers, which can be run separatly or in RAID configurations. Additionally, you have 2 IDE channels that support up to 4 ATA133 drives. The unusual feature is that you can also run the IDE controllers in a RAID configuration. This is controlled by a jumper. What you need to do is to read your manual first, figure out how you want to setup this MB and then if you need help, post again.

the motherboard was installed for me along with the ATA drive. all i'm trying to do is install an IDE slave drive.

I am confused, you call your existing drive an ATA drive, but in your system specs you say you have a WD SATA drive. If you do have a SATA drive, then the ATA drive you are now trying to install CANNOT be a slave. That drive needs to be jumpered as master alone. Connect to the primary IDE channel(first/lower#). In addition, as I mentioned in my first post, there is an onboard jumper to enable an IDE RAID configuration. You need to make sure that the jumper isn't set for RAID. Boot to the BIOS and set the first IDE to Auto. You also need to install the chipset drivers from the MB disk. Also, drivers for any onboard periphials, such as NIC, sound, video, firewire. Those drivers may or may not be part of the chipset driver package, but should be on the disk.

the drive that came with my computer is an SATA drive. what i would like to do is install my old 40GB hard drive as the secondary hard drive. i didn't know how to go about doing it. i would think i would just have to set the jumper setting, edit the BIOS and boom. we'll see. so i want the 2nd HD to be a master?

Yes, just follow my instructions.