Im trying to add a ide seagate 80gig HD to my comp it detects it in the inital part of boot up but it keeps going to this screen so i cant get to format it etc

Help

Please provide more specific informatoin. MB type/Make, Type of HD not just make (Model, ATA style/type) etc.

Thank you and Welcome to D-A-L

Just check you have no USB devices attached, as these can susspend the boot squence and cause the PC to 'hang' on the BIOS check screen.

Also try to boot with only the keyboard, mouse and monitor attached. Too many attached devices can cuase the PC confusion.

Another point of attack, might be to put your new hard drive in on its own and formatt it that way. Then put in it as the slave and go from there.

Also check that they are put in the correct order on the cable. If you look at the back of each driver (whether it be a hard drive, CD-ROM, DVD-ROM, Zip drive), there will a jumper which makes the drive on of the following -

Jumpers - http://www.cheap-discount-computer-p...DD-Jumpers.jpg

Master
Master or single drive
Slave
Cable Select
Master with non-ATA compatable slave
Limit drive to so many gigabytes (some many cyclinders)

Jumper settings - http://www.hitachigst.com/hdd/suppor...50/16lhjum.gif

Note: Not all drives have all the options

You then need to descide which one of the drives will be the slave and which one will be the master. Usually the CD-RW, DVD or DVD +/- RW will be the master and the drive lower down the chain* will be the slave. In your case your CD-RW will be the master and CD-ROM will be the salve

Also you'll need to make sure that they are connected to the ribbon in the right order. A 3 connection ribbon cable will have 2 off the connections close together (see - http://www.dvworkshop.co.uk/Compute..._Cards/IDE2.jpg or a modern verison - http://images.tigerdirect.com/SKUim...-1034-main.jpg). You need to conect the ribbon so that the longest part of the cable connects the the main board leaving the short distance between the drives. The connector futhest away from the mainboard is the master, then the slave, then obviously the motherboard connector.


I hope this helps and I'm sorry for the whole speach. Just copied and pasted an old post.


Regards
_____
Meck


*Note: Chain of command for removable media drives
1) DVD RAM/+/- RW
2) DVD +/- RW
3) either DVD+RW or DVD-RW
4) CD-RW with DVD playback ability
5) CD-RW
6) CD-ROM
7) ZIP
8) JAZ