I recently installed a new harddrive in my buddys computer and it was working fine but there wasn't another IDE cable for the DVD drive. We unplugged one harddrive so the DVD drive could work to install a program and now after the HD has been plugged in the speed has drastically dropped and has made it nearly impossible to do anything. Any suggestions?
So, you have a hard drive and the DVD drive plugged into the same IDE cable? If that's the case, you will experience less than full performance. IDE will only address one device per channel at a time. Additionally, the IDE controller may very well run at ATA33 speeds, which is the fastest optical drives can transfer data. Optimally, you'll want to run each drive on it's own channel, but if that's not possible, at least run hard drives together with hard drives and optical drives with optical drives.
you unplugged the other hdd, used the dvd and plugged the hdd again am i right? try to reset cmos it may work because sometimes using the same cables don't make too much problems generally the settings do this s**t when you check bios it will show it correctly but resetting will be better just pull out the battery for a min if you don't know the jumper's place
