Hi
I've added a second hard drive to my system and formatted it so it works!! It ran fine but as soon as i turned my computer off and left it for a while it wouldn't turn back on again, just turns on and off straight away with no time to get into the bios! But if i unplug the second hard drive, it will work again.
The jumpers are right because if the comp is up and running for a while and i turn it off and quickly connect the leads back to the second hard drive it will work now? But turn off the comp and back to square 1.
I have 2 dvd rewriters and 2 hard drives. 350w power supply and msi 845pe mother board.. Any help much appreciatedYour second hard drive -- EXTERNAL?  USB?
Your 2 DVD rewriters  --  also USB?
Instead of unpluging the external during the trouble shooting, unplug the   DVD rewriters, ie run the computer with just the TWO hard drives. I am presuming that one is internal and the other external.

If your external connections are via USB, how are they connected? Daisy chained to each other? Connected to the computer built in ports? Some connected to built in ports and others connected to PCI card?
Some connected to computer via USB hub? Is the hub powered or PASSIVE?

Just a WAG on my part,  but I suspect that you need either a USB PCI card or powered hub, or both, as the USB bus provided by the computer cannot cupply the power necessary to drive your set of externals. I'm not sure a bigger power supply will improve the situation.All of the hard ware is internal i have the side of my comp unscrewed for easy access!I suspect 2nd hard drive is drawing more startup current than it should.  When it is warm, it's taking less current to startup.  Because of this, power supply is being overloaded and shuts down.Cheers.
Would you suggest a bigger power supply? Maybe 400w or even 450w?Can you try a different hard drive?  How old is this 2nd hard drive?  How many GB?  Is it still under warranty?  Hard drives are about the same price as power supplies.Bought a 200 gig brand new hard drive and this wouldn't work so put it in an external case which works fine. Then bought a brand new 120 gig that is in now and this is happening again so not sure. They both work on the external case though. Primary is 80 gigExternal case has external power supply.  It appears you need a larger internal power supply.  Get the biggest one that that will fit and that you can afford.  You can't have too much power.  The computer will only use as much power as it requires.Cheers.
I'll give it a go! Seems logical and i've tried about everything else so it won't hurt to try this.Another thing to check is if your motherboard supports ATA or higher than standard IDE connectors. Most new hard drives are the new standard. I would suggest you get a new powersupply due to the fact you are running so much hardware.  Another thing to check is after you turn off your computer and turn it back on bios is saying either your new harddrive is a maste or slave, also go into th seetings of the hardrive on bios, depending on what version you and how old bios is manaully select the hard drives size( LARGE, Auto, or I can not remember the third option) Select large.  Sometimes windows can not sometimes  see large hard drives.  It will say you have this much rather than the actuall amount.  Make sure your jumpers are correct and all cables are connected properly and also make dure nothijg is tugging on the cord to accidently pull it out of your device...just some things to look at...Its usually the smallest, stupidest things that cause these problems..that most people over-look.