BIOS only recognizes secondary drives

This is so weird...I am trying to resolve an intractable capacity issue with a 160-gig HD that thinks it's 31 gigs...so I am having to reboot with various CDs & floppies in, & various drives plugged in or unplugged. BUT my BIOS only sees a HD if it is plugged into the middle of the IDE cable, and not if it's at the end. This is playing hell with my ability to boot with the proper stuff attached.
Yes, I have tried other cables; same thing. I have two IDE slots on the board; if I plug two HDs into them (one each) then it sees a primary master & secondary master BUT ONLY if I plug them in the middle. I can't put two on one cable, nor can I put the CD or DVD drives on with a hard drive. One drive in the middle only. Doesn't seem to make any difference where the jumpers are.
WTF?

 

Hello Quango, welcome to Major Geeks.

Have you reset the BIOS to defaults?
If necessary take the battery out for half an hour.

If this doesn't help post again with details of your hardware,
Motherboard, BIOS, hard drives.

 

Oh, Studiot, I caper at your feet in utter delight! See me do my Decadent Technology Happy Dance!

I reset the BIOS. Both my hard drives are on one cable, and they work. My DVD drive works. My floppy drive works. AND.....

IT FIXED THE CAPACITY ISSUE TOO! Oh, joy! I cannot tell you how long I have been going round & round with this. I am no slouch, either, but it never occurred to me to reset the BIOS. (too simple? not even. I just didn't think of it.)

You rock Thank you profoundly. You rock.

 

Glad it worked out and wasn't more serious.

Feel free to share any knowledge/experience with other Geeks in future and respond to some threads.