Im trying to add a third HD to a dell dimension 7100. It already has two hds one 80 and one 40. I dont know where the second one is maybe its SATA??I dont know. When I add my Maxtor 40 as a master it ignores it and when I add it as a slave. It will say Primary/ Secondary drive 1/0 (depending on the HD config in the setup) not found. So i really need to Add this third HD its only temporary Im willing to disconect the second master if I knew where it was. Help would be much appretiated. Oh and its running WinXP home I dunno what SP. Thanks

Im trying to add a third HD to a dell dimension 7100. It already has two hds one 80 and one 40. I dont know where the second one is maybe its SATA??I dont know. When I add my Maxtor 40 as a master it ignores it and when I add it as a slave. It will say Primary/ Secondary drive 1/0 (depending on the HD config in the setup) not found. So i really need to Add this third HD its only temporary Im willing to disconect the second master if I knew where it was. Help would be much appretiated. Oh and its running WinXP home I dunno what SP. Thanks

I can find no reference to a Dell Dimension 7100. Are you sure? They appear to have gone from 5100 to 8100 then 9100.

http://support.dell.com/support/syst...=12&~subcat=84

Anyway here is the difference in the cable betwenn ATA and SATA:

If you do not have SATA drives then your two hard drives are probably Primary Master and slave with your DVD/CD drive as Secondary Master which will leave the Secondary slave available.

Are you sure that the jumpers are set correctly?

Many Dells using EIDE drives use "Cable Select". Cable select determines the master and slave by which connector on the cable the drive is connected to. Typically, the last one is master and the inner one is slave.

Assuming you have the EIDE drive and not the SATA drive, set the jumpers for Cable Select (see the diagram on the back, bottom, or top of your drive). Once you hook it up, enter the BIOS and ensure that the drive is recognized. Be sure not to switch your original and new drives as this make make the machine unable to find the primary OS until you switch them back.