Hello all! I got a new CPU for Christmas that has a Seagate 160GB SATA HD in it. I want to put my Western Digital 80GB IDE HD in it as a slave so I can get my files transferred. I've got them both hooked up and they both show up in the BIOS and Disk Management. But, the slave HD does not show up in Windows Explorer. In Disk Management, there is no drive letter assigned and I cannot assign one. That option is grayed out. The only options I have are Delete Partition and Help. Both drives show up as Healthy. The only difference between the drives (besides one is SATA and one is IDE) is the old HD has Windows XP Home system on it. Both are NTFS. Any help is appreciated! I'm driving myself crazy trying to find the answer! Windows XP Pro SP2 AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 5000+ 2.61GHz, 1.93GB RAM MSI K9N6PGM2 Motherboard NVIDIA GeForce MCP61P + nForce 430 Chipset

"I got a new CPU for Christmas" A CPU is a chip that's inserted into a socket on the motherboard. Judging from your sig, your CPU is an AMD X2 5000+. Now, what exactly did you get for Christmas? Try googling "xp take ownership"

Look in Disk Management to see if the drive is showing there. You may be able to assign a drive letter there. You may need to also take ownership of the files/folders. Look at the link below to learn how to do that. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308421

jam, I got a Home-built computer. OtheHill, I can't assign a drive letter in Disk Management. It is grayed out. I was going to try to take ownership but it says to right-click on the folder you want to take ownership of and click properties. I can't see my slave HD in Windows Explorer so I'm not sure how I would be able to right-click on it. Any other ideas? Windows XP Pro SP2 AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 5000+ 2.61GHz, 1.93GB RAM MSI K9N6PGM2 Motherboard NVIDIA GeForce MCP61P + nForce 430 Chipset

"I got a new CPU .... " That's an incorrect use of the term CPU. Your computer case and all the components inside it is NOT a CPU, despite the fact some people and some ad descriptions call it that. I'm assuming you hooked up the IDE drive to the mboard, and it's not in an external drive case. The 80gb IDE drive can be, but does not have to be, hooked up and/or jumpered as slave - you just have to have the SATA 160gb drive specified as the drive you boot from first in the boot order settings in your bios by making sure it's the first one listed there. There may be more than one hard drive listed in the boot order settings, OR you may need to find a list of hard drives in the bios, often near the boot order settings, and make sure the 160gb one is listed first when the 80gb drive is connected (they are often listed by their model number). .... It is NOT a good idea to designate an IDE drive as slave when it's the only drive on an IDE data cable. Recent mboard bioses will often detect an IDE drive connected and jumpered as slave if it is by itself on an IDE data cable anyway, or if it's jumpered cable select and on the middle connector on a 3 connector cable which designates it as slave if it is by itself on an IDE data cable anyway, but Windows may not detect the drive properly. If the IDE drive is by itself on a data cable, it should be jumpered master and be connected to either the middle or end connector, or it should be jumpered cable select and on the END connector on a 3 connector cable, NOT the middle one. Also, the blue connector end of the data cable MUST be connected to the mboard header. The IDE data cable you use for the IDE hard drive MUST have 80 wires. It is common to un-intentionally damage IDE data cables, especially while removing them - the 80 wire ones are more likely to be damaged. What usually happens is the cable is ripped at either edge and the wires there are either damaged or severed, often right at a connector or under it's cable clamp there, where it's hard to see - if a wire is severed but it's ends are touching, the connection is intermittant, rather than being reliable. Another common thing is for the data cable to be separated from the connector contacts a bit after you have removed a cable - there should be no gap between the data cable and the connector - if there is press the cable against the connector to eliminate the gap. 80 wire data cables are also easily damaged at either edge if the cable is sharply creased at a fold in the cable. Try another data cable if in doubt. ...... If any user of the 80gb drive was using a password, you my need to "take ownership", but as far as I have seen, that ONLY applies if you CAN see the drive letter for the drive in My Computer or Windows Explorer, but when you click on the drive letter or a file or folder on the drive you get an "access denied" or similar message.

You refer to the old IDE drive as a slave. You should have that drive jumpered as Master. The SATA and IDE channels are totally independent of one another. Have the 80GB IDE set as Master or if a WDigital drive and alone on the cable, Master alone. Highlight the drive in Disk Management and go to Action> all tasks> properties> volumes. What is listed there? Try this also. Highlight the drive in Disk Management and go to Action> rescan disks.

"...WDigital drive and alone on the cable, Master alone." WD hard drives, and some other maker drives, often have two different settings for master - master (single) or similar - for when it's by itself on a data cable, and master (with slave present) or similar for when there is another drive jumpered as slave on the cable, that is not recognized properly when the master drive is jumpered master (single). Usually both settings are on the label on the drive, or if not, or in any case, they can be looked up on the web at the manufacturer's web site.