How to setup master and slave hard drives

How to set up master and slave on Hard Drives? Thread starter Baltan Start date Jun 19, Status Not open for further replies.

Hi Guys I have found an old 4gb Hard drive which I wont to use but I cant seem to set the master and slave correctly. The 4gb Hard drive has nothing on it. I have tried to set the main one to master and the 4 GB to slave but when i boot it tries to load from the 4gb hard drive?

Why is this and how can i fix it? I purley wont to use the 4gb for testing small programmes. Please can you help Baltan :wave:. First, set the jumpers on the 4gig hard drive to slave. Set the jumpers on your main hard drive to master, again look at the diagram on the hard drive for jumper settings.

Connect the master drive to the end of the IDE cable and the slave drive to the connector that is part way down the ide cable. Start your computer and see if both drives are detected on the primary ide channel in the correct order. Regards Howard. Select the computer's built-in hard drive. This will most likely be the top hard drive in the list, though you should confirm by looking at the drive's name.

Change the hard drive to "Master" status. You should see "Master" pop up next to the hard drive's name. You can also set this drive to "Auto" instead to allow your operating system to select "Master" for it. Select the second hard drive. Using the arrow keys, find and select the hard drive that you attached to the computer.

Change the hard drive to "Slave" status. You'll use the "Configure" or "Change" key to do this as well. Once you see "Slave" to the right or near the drive's name, you can proceed. If you chose "Auto" for the first drive, you'll instead set the second hard drive to "Auto" as well.

Save your changes and exit the BIOS. To do so, look for the "Save" or "Save and Exit" key in the key legend. In some cases, you may have to press another key after saving to confirm that you want to save and exit. Hard shut it off by pressing the power button, then pressing the power button again once it is off.

Choose the restart option. Yes No. Not Helpful 0 Helpful 1. Bill Taylor. Assuming you are not using something antiquated that can be strapped jumpered , the quickest way to reverse the order of the hard drives in the BIOS is to swap the cables, either on the back of the drives or on the motherboard.

Otherwise, if it is nothing more than wanting to default to what you refer to as the slave on start up, simply change the boot order in the BIOS. Not Helpful 0 Helpful 4. Include your email address to get a message when this question is answered. Your computer's "Slave" drive is perfect for backing up data from the "Master" drive.

Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0. When adjusting internal components in a computer, be sure to ground yourself before touching any sensitive objects such as connectors or circuit boards. You Might Also Like How to. How to. If prompted for a password, enter it and press the "Enter" key. Usually the first BIOS screen to appear is the primary, or basic screen. Press the "Enter" key to detect and configure the primary hard disk, making it the Master Drive. Move the cursor to the "Primary Slave" selection and press "Enter" again.

Your system will repeat the same process for the second drive, but making this one the Slave Drive. Press the "F10" key to save the changes.