Trying to install a 2nd harddrive (western digital 160g) and have tried it multiple ways with no luck. The device manager see's it as a 2nd disk drive says its working proberly. Disk manager doesn't have it listed as drive. Listed as auto and I can see the 160g in setup (F2) as second drive. Partition Magic gives me 100 error partition table is bad. Jumpers when using it as a 2nd drive were set to slave according to the diagram and tried this also in multiple slots as well.

Now I have just the drive I want to format and start over with which I will make a 2nd drive later. Have it hooked as the master and trying to install XP and get there is no drive error, so try to install or delete partition commands and it just goes to a blue screen. Any ideas or help as I would love to use this 160g drive?

At anytime I can hook up the working drive back to the PC and all goes back to normal.

Welcome to Syschat!

By working drive I take it you mean one you are not having trouble with. This could be one of a few things and is going to have to be a lot of trial and error , basic fault finding and patience I'm afriad.

Have you had the 160GB drive working as a master or slave in another PC?
If yes, can you put it back and see if it works? If it does work then format it in this machine and then set it up in the new machine as a second drive. If not....

It may be a knackered cable, change the IDE cable and check to see if it works. If not....

Also check that all the pins are intact on the drive itself. A missing pin could be the cause of the drive not being seen correctly.

Finally check the setting in your bios are set right. Just plug the drive up and change your bios settings to "optimum setting" or similar (you can change them back later).

Try this and let us know how you get on and see if you need any more ideas...

It was a master in my xbox that was put in awhile back. Xbox no longer powers up so I am trying to format so I can use in my PC. So, no can't plug it back into the xbox. I don't care what is on it and I don't mind reformatting to erase everything just want the space. Just can't get it to format it.

I am using the same cable which works with my working harddrive that came with the PC.

Pins are all in tact

F2 to change the optimum setting? If so where in F2?

if it helps, when I select delete partition during xp install even though it says there is no disk it gives me "This partition contains temporary setup files that are required to complete installation." I hit enter to continue blue screen.

When you are into your bios one of the options you can scroll down to should be "Automattically configure for optimum settings" or something similar.

Did you have linux on it in your xbox?
I ask this because xbox were shipped with 8GB HDD went up to 10GB after a while.
If so, it maybe because it still has xbox software and linux on it that you are getting problems.

I have read that xbox HDD are password protected and that you can't do anything with them unless you have the password. They need this password to run in the xbox, so that could be a problem also.

Other than that I'm all out of ideas, sorry.

EDIT: Did you have your Xbox chipped? I'm asking because I want to make mine xbox a media centre with my old 200GB HDD, but if I need to buy a chip and all that I might not bother...

true with the xbox harddrive out of box, however I was running it with xbox media center, chipped and put in a 160g drive so I don't believe I should have those xbox problems and yes I do believe it was running linux. Can I have someone with Linux do something with it so maybe I can use it with windows?

You do need to chip the xbox if you are going to use another harddrive internal. There is a way to softmod it but you can't use it for games or the internal harddrive after that just for XBMC. Works great with an external NAS. I have links if you want to know how to do it or how to purchase already chipped. Got my 360 chipped coming in a couple of days and another softmod xbox 1 so I can get my XBMC back. appreciate the help if you know anything I can do to format that internal linux drive I have sitting around for windows.