HD Installation IDE3/IDE4

[j4ck]

I am a bit at a loss on this one...

I had to RMA a WD HDD and I wish to move data from an existing HDD to the new one with the aim of getting rid of the old HDD. Here is my problem: in order to do this I want to connect (temporarily) the new HDD to to either the IDE3 or IDE4 connector on my GA-7VRXP Motherboard (http://www.giga-byte.com/Motherboard/Support/Manual/Manual_GA-7VRXP(2.0).htm). (according to the manual IDE3/4 support RAID and ATA133) However, the drive is not detected and I can't seem to manipulate the BIOS so that the drive *is* detected. (I am worried that there seems to be no place to view the IDE3/4 connections in BIOS) The only clue I have as to what to do lies in the cryptic message in the GA-7VRXP "Quick Installation Guide" that says:

"Important Notice: If you wish to use IDE3 and IDE4, please use it in unity with BIOS. Then, install drivers...[etc]"

...Huh??

Thank you for reading, and any help is certainly appreciated!

[glc]

If this is something temporary just to copy files, disconnect something that's on IDE1 or IDE2, and put the drive on that. I do this all the time to clone drives - I disconnect the cd burner or something I don't need to do the clone job.

[j4ck]

Cool. I will try that now. Thanks!

(btw, is it *impossible* to use an "un-RAIDed" drive on IDE3 and IDE4?)

[glc]

I don't know, but I'm assuming it reqires a specific bios setting and driver installation.

[j4ck]

Thanks a lot for the help, glc. I *finally* got things to work out for me. However, the only way I could get a drive temporarily mounted on the IDE1 channel so that I could transfer data to it from my old HDD was to download and make use of the WD diagnostic/partitioning tool "Data Lifeguard". I suppose that some other partitioning tool would have sufficed...but I am surprised that I had to make use of such a program at all. Is there a way to make a single startup disk for W2K (or use the W2K CD) so that I could use FDISK to add additional HDDs?

[glc]

Data Lifeguard is a very good tool to clone a hard drive, it runs from a bootdisk.

No, Win2K does not use a bootdisk or FDISK. Drive partitioning is done during initial Windows setup and in Disk Management once in Windows.

[j4ck]

Gee...no wonder I was having a time of it.

Thanks again. :)