2nd hard drive installation

Hello,

The motherboard on my Dell Diemension 3000 died.

I also have a Dell Optiplex 170L and it works fine.

What I would like to do is to take the Hard Drive from the Dimension 3000 and put it into the Optiplex 170L as a second hard drive. There is a space for the 2nd hard drive along with the cables to do so.

when I remove the Optiplex HD and install the Dim 3000 HD it works fine. But when I hook up both HD's The screen says :


Primary drive 0 not found
Secondary drive 1 not found

after pressing F2 and choosing the 'Drive config." option the statments say:

SATA Primary Drive - OFF
Primary Master Drive - Unknown Device
Primary Slave Drive - Off
Secondary Master Drive CD-ROM Device
Secondary Slave Drive Unknown Device

IDE Drive UDMA - ON
I do not want to re format either Hard Drive. I just would like to be able to access either drive when ever I want.

Can anyone help me with this.


Thank you very much,

Tony

<<when I remove the Optiplex HD and install the Dim 3000 HD it works fine. >>

It should not. A hard drive which reflects settings and drivers from a different motherboard...should be expected to have BSODS or similar problems without user intervention.

Changing a Motherboard or Moving Hard Drive - http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/moving_xp.html

Louis

What I was trying to say is after it reconized new hardware it made the adjustments and settings and it works the same as if it were in the DIM 3000. There is a bay for a second HD so I'm assuming that it is possible to install a 2nd HD. am I right?

A second hard drive that can be used for storage....yes.

A second hard drive that can then have a version of Windows installed on it...yes.

A second hard drive that already has an O/S installed on it from a different motherboard...yes. But that drive will be accessible only as a storage drive, not as a boot drive. None of the programs installed on that drive will run as they ran in the other system.

And the jumper settings need to be correctly set for its position on the cable connecting it to the motherboard.

Seagate Technology - ATA Jumper Settings - http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.jsp?loca...000dd04090aRCRD

Louis