Currently have a HP Vectra VE6 350MHZ and 96 RAM. When I connect one hard drive (3GB) it works Ok and starts up immediately. When I remove this and REPLACE it with another 3GB hard drive (using same cables and IDE)it takes about 2 minutes to start up. When I turn it on it will show the Vectra Info and give me the usual 5 seconds to get into the BIOS. THEN it just hangs for the same amount of time every time (about a minute) before it will start to open up Windows 98SE. Both the hard drives have identical soft ware on them. I have reformatted etc but it still hangs. Has anyone any idea why it takes so long on ONE of the hard drives when the other works perfect. As a matter of interest it is exactly the same when closing down; the fast HD closes and shuts off within say 10 seconds the slow one takes about a minute. Many thanks

you could run a hard drive diagnostic utility with the slow drive, and see what it reports. http://www.maxtor.com/en/support/downloads/powermax.htm read all the instructions on how to use powermax, it will create a bootable floppy ,that you can run diagnostics with.skip the ones that erase the drive.

Thanks for that useful site, but I have acted like a fool. I had the jumper set to Master, but I did not realise if you were only using this one hard drive you either totally removed the jumper or set it to pins 3 to 5. Still one lives and learns.

Don't be too hard on yourself Eagle... if I had a penny for every time I messed up the jumpers on multiple drive systems, I'd be on a beach in Aruba with Heidi Klum. : )