Incorrect jumper settings will also prevent the BIOS from detecting your drive. The most common incorrect jumper setting used is for a drive that is alone on the data cable. Keep in mind that the concept of Master/Slave applies to a given EIDE channel. If there are two drives on the data cable, one must be Master and one designated as Slave. If the drive is the only device on the cable, it should be jumpered as a Single drive, NOT a Master. To do this, place a jumper shunt on pins 4 & 6, or remove the jumper shunt completely to set the drive as a Single drive.
Apparently, when you have just one drive on a chain, you should not set it to Master. I was having problems with this old P200 that I got. It wouldn't see the drive from BIOS (even though Linux had no problem installing to and using the drive).
Posted by jshare at November 10, 2003 10:25 PM