Thread: I want to work with both the PATA HDD and DVD drives at the same time?

I have a small query for which I would like to seek some suggestions. I have a 40 GB PATA HDD. On the other hand, I have a SATA 80 GB installed in my new computer system. When I plug in a 80 GB PATA HDD, both the SATA and PATA HDDs are detected as usual. But when I plug in the PATA HDD and a PATA DVD drive, neither of the two is detected. When I use either PATA or my DVD drive, it is detected. Can you suggest a solution so that I can work with both the PATA HDD and DVD drives at the same time? Thanking you in advance.

Both your PATA drives must have been configured to function as either masters or slaves and hence there is no proper role for each drive for the BIOS to identify. You cannot have both the PATA drives working as master or slave at the same time. You will need to define one as a master and the other as a slave. Carefully inspect both the drives and the optical drive's connector sides. There you will find a jumper set which defines the drives to be configured as a master or a slave in the series. Set the jumper on the PATA hard drive as 'Master' and the optical drive as the 'Slave'. Connect the drives to the system and now your drives should be detected properly.