computer wont pick up hard drive

any body know why a computer wont pick up my new hard drive?...it is a p2 350 mhz processor...old 20 gb drive died..it was a maxtor ata 133 hdd..the one i got for it now is a western digital 80 gb ide !keeps saying on boot up detecting primary master but it doesnt..tried all jumper settings is there something im not doing?

 

If you are installing this on the primary IDE cable and the cable is an 80-wire then the drive positioning is more important than a 40-wire.

The three connectors are as follows:

The connector farthest from the middle connector goes to the connector on the mother board

the middle connector is the one for the slave drive

the connector at the other end that is closest to the center connector is for the master drive

Since 80-wire IDE cables are wired specially the above is the only way that the drives will work properly and there is not diddly anyone can do about it.

As for the jumpers on the back of the hard drives this is another matter sometimes they do not work as they should since drives of different manufacturers have slight problems using these together when set supposedly in a proper way, the solution is to guess which way and this is tough I would suggest making a diagram and sritting the pins locations down when the shorting jumpers are applied.

It one took me three hours to figure the way the jumpers went but when the post booting sees the drives you should be set.

 

i had the cables hooked up as you said but still wont recognize the drive!is there a place in cmos or the bios to go to ? thanx again!