Thank you for your replies. The IBM desktop & tower have built in drives. The ones I'm trying 
to get working are 3:5 " IDE drives. I have tried them as masters and slaves. In R click my comp, >manage> disk management> one of the external drives ( with external power ) will
show up but will not let me format. I've tried control panel > add hardware - nothing. The other doesn't show up anywhere. I'll try what you suggest tonight Peter & hope. Thanks again, Al

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