old 20Gig IDE Drive PCLinuxOS2010 KDE

[maxpolaris]

I have a bunch of IDE HD's in Windows Formats. I know they variously work on several machines as masters, slaves and as USB attached storage.
I stick an IDE Drive in the PC  jmper setting as Cable Select.
I Boot PCLinuxOS2010 KDE Live CD. I try to install. Linux says no drives found.
I try Configure Hardware in PC Control Center, select HD's and my  Maxtor HD Model Number IS listed.
What do I need to do, and with what commands and in what order to get PCLinux to Format the Drive, Install a File System and mount it so I can install Linux on it? Can someone give me a basic hit list to try? Like do I have to 1st modify a /devs/file.

[Old-Polack]

I have a bunch of IDE HD's in Windows Formats. I know they variously work on several machines as masters, slaves and as USB attached storage.
I stick an IDE Drive in the PC  jmper setting as Cable Select.
I Boot PCLinuxOS2010 KDE Live CD. I try to install. Linux says no drives found.
I try Configure Hardware in PC Control Center, select HD's and my  Maxtor HD Model Number IS listed.
What do I need to do, and with what commands and in what order to get PCLinux to Format the Drive, Install a File System and mount it so I can install Linux on it? Can someone give me a basic hit list to try? Like do I have to 1st modify a /devs/file.

Item one on my list would be to properly jumper the drive as either master or slave, depending on the connection cable. If it's the only device, master. If it shares a cable with an optical drive, make the optical drive the slave and hard drive the master. If it shares a cable with another hard drive, choose one to be master and one to be slave, it doesn't matter which is the master unless the BIOS is very old and doesn't allow for selecting which drive should be the boot drive. In that case the primary master will always be the boot drive, so choose accordingly.

If the liveCD still can't find the drive, you will have to load the proper module to see the IDE drive controller.

[uncleV]

Just wanted to post say the same - try Slave or Master - but o-p was the first (again).

maxpolaris,
my advice is: stick to o-p advices  

[maxpolaris]

I tried Master/Slave/Cable Select and some BIOS Options last night, with no luck. Funny thing is BIOS knows exactly what the drive is now, and Control Center in PCLinux still correctly ID's the drive as Maxtor Heads Cyls Sectors, but Install PCLInux says it doesn't see anything to install onto. I assume (always gets me in a mess) Install would query me for or automatically suggest Partition and FileSystem and other suff.
Anyways for now this is on the back burner as I have to reconfirm the drives still work. They did a few weeks ago when I transfered a bunch
audio files from them but last night they were not accessible on Windoze via usb attach.

Anyways thanks for the suggestions.

[menotu]

Could try GParted or SystemRescueCD LiveCD's etc and format your drive before trying it with PCLinuxOS.

[djohnston]

I tried Master/Slave/Cable Select and some BIOS Options last night, with no luck. Funny thing is BIOS knows exactly what the drive is now, and Control Center in PCLinux still correctly ID's the drive as Maxtor Heads Cyls Sectors, but Install PCLInux says it doesn't see anything to install onto.

It's possible the drive you are trying to install to doesn't have enough free space for the installation to work. Next time you boot the liveCD, before trying to install, start PCC (Configure Your Computer). Click Local Disks in the left panel, then click Manage Disk Partitions. See if the hard disk is listed. If you're not going to install another OS on that drive, you can wipe its contents and start with an empty drive.