I've replaced a defective computer with a second hand replacement. Both are programmed with XP and the same browser. I've installed the hard drive into the slave position of the tower, plugged in the secondary ribbon cable and power cord, and powered up. The computer doesn't recognize the added hardware. Is there an easy way to simple transfer the data to the new hard drive, or is there a way to access the second hard drive so I can use it as part of the computer program?1 person needs an answerI do too

Check the plastic jumper pins on the hd,place the pin to the right position (slave or master).Also, boot into the BIOS & see which disk has boot priority,set as needed.

I've replaced a defective computer with a second hand replacement. Both are programmed with XP and the same browser. I've installed the hard drive into the slave position of the tower, plugged in the secondary ribbon cable and power cord, and powered up. The computer doesn't recognize the added hardware. Is there an easy way to simple transfer the data to the new hard drive, or is there a way to access the second hard drive so I can use it as part of the computer program?You've misused some terminology in that question, so it's a bit difficult to determine what your issue may be.What do you mean by "the computer doesn't recognize the added hardware?" Does the drive show in Disk Management (Start > Run > diskmgmt.msc > OK)? If the drive shows in Disk Management but not in My Computer, you may have to use Disk Management to assign a drive letter.It sounds as if you want to take the hard drive from the defective computer (assuming, of course, that it was not the hard drive itself that was defective) and put it in another computer.There is no such thing as a "slave position of the tower." Presumably, you just placed the old drive in an available drive bay.Typically, the "secondary ribbon cable" is used for optical drives -- not a second hard drive. Usually, if there is only one hard drive, it is attached to the connector at the end of the ribbon cable and the second hard drive is connected using the connector in the middle of the cable. The cable attached to the primary IDE connector on the motherboard should be an 80-wire cable, whereas the other might be a 40-wire cable:http://www.mikeshardware.com/howtos/howto_connect_ide_hd.htmlWhen you have 2 drives connected on the same 80-wire cable, one is the "master" (the one connected at the end of the cable) and the other is the "slave." You need to tell the drive about this, which you do by properly setting the jumper on the pins at the back of the drive. You set the jumper on one as "master" and the other as "slave" or both drives can be set to "Cable Select" if they both support this and you have the special "Cable Select" cable.However you connect them, you should ensure that the drive from the old computer is set as the slave drive, because you do NOT want to boot from that Windows installation.The foregoing assumes that both drives are the older IDE type of drive. If either or both are SATA drives, that's a different thing entirely.

Connecting hard-disk in place of cd drive or attaching it to the unused slot on mother board will make drive as secondary master, once you connect the hdd boot to CMOS and see if you can figure out the hdd.