dell and 3 hard disks

my client have a new midi tower dell computer (i think its intel 810 based).
i added a 30gb wd disk to the original one and everything worked fine.
a few days ago i tried to add another wd 30gb drive and it works only in secondary slave with the dell cdrom and even without the cdrom it works only as slave.
when i try to copy data i get bsod that says "disk is full or damaged".
i replaced the disk to 20gb wd and i can complete a full format through windows, agains it mention errors that could not let the computer perform the format on the new disk.
the disk was in a drawer, so i replaced the drawer to another type, and also the cables but no success.
please help....

Format the drive in DOS - not Windows

------------------
Paint your old laptop!

been there, done that , didnt helped.
the drive formats , and then the problem again , and even more, windows boot in about 4 minutes......
thanks shawn

Dell's are normally run as Cable select drives. Is the new hard disk set as Cable select? If not give it a try.

------------------
why are our jobs so interesting??????

For a different ' angle ' on life visit my NEW homepage @ The Carpers Lodge - The UK's No.1 Non-Commercial / Independant Carp Angling Website

never used cable select in my life.
can you give me a short description ?
is a special cable needed ?
the primary master and slave works great.