I am currently installing a second harddrive. Can you direct me to the most user friendly instructions?

All WRONG!!! pin BOTH harddrives to "cable select."

Happy booting!

You will then see your extra HD in "my computer"

Yea!!!!!!!!!!!! 4 ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

P.s. If u cant open the 2nd harddrive, right click it in my computer, and select "format."

Take a detail look on the surface of the HDD and you'll see how to set up your hard disk drives to either master or slave. There are small pieces of plastics that are similar to switches in the side of the HDD. You have to set the second hard disk drive as slave, and make sure you connect the IDE cable correctly. And when you reboot your computer, try to enter CMOS by pushing some of the funtion keys such as F2 or DEL. And that will show you if the HDD is hooked up right or wrong.

I not say this the easy or best, but, it may help.

I use Linux and it a little different from Windows.

http://www.directron.com/how.html

They talk IDE Drives, they have the wide connector. If, you use SATA it about the same. On my MOBO the SATA connections are Drive specific for Master/Slave. I have 4.

If, you can tell the Brand of Drives you use it may help someone explain better.

This is what you have done wrong my friend.

You have set both your Hard disks to Master, and they are connected to the same ribbon cable. To fix set you original drive to master (look for the little pins near to where you plugged the cable in) accross these is a Jumper, the drive should have a lable on it showing you how to do this. Your Second Drive should be set to Slave.

If this fails set both drives to CS (Cable Select).

You could go to the manufacturers webpage, they usually have a support section, your drive should have had instructions with it as far as telling you pin locations for master/slave switches, try these;

http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/support/

https://iomega-na-en.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/iomega_n...

http://support.wdc.com/products/index.asp

if it is a Maxtor, remember that Seagate acquired them so you can get support there. Windows XP has a file transfer wizard.

Just do a google u'll find alot result.......

bythe way check ur jumper settings...power connector and most imp try to boot from first hard disk(ccheck priorty from bios)

It sounds like your computer cant find the OS but i found a tutorial.

http://www.pchelpforum.com/hardware-tutorials/1068...

Has a video and includes text instructions

http://www.ehow.com/how_6030_install-second-hard.h...

http://tech.yahoo.com/gd/adding-a-second-internal-...

http://www.pcmech.com/article/installing-a-hard-dr...