Hard drive not recognized now

I had problems with computer freeze, decided to re-install XP Pro and now my computer says I have no mass storage on my computer.

I used book disks (second time around) after it refused to recognize the CD and it asked for any drivers, which I tried to install from a floppy (RAID) and it just keeps going through the booting up routine without ever going into windows and won't even give me just Command mode.

What to do?

Thanks.

 

Or...reset the bios. The easiet way is to take the battery out of the motherboard...wait..wait...for about 2 mins or 30 mins pending on your patience, then put the battery back in. Boot the computer. This resets the bios.

OR

You can find the bios reset jumper on the motherboard switch from off to on and back.

OR

You can go into the bios, and set factory defaults....

Is your hard drive set as master?

 

Woah, wait...you said RAID....was it raid 1 by any chance?????

Give some system specs...that will help out....

 

Although I'm not a newbie exactly, when I enter the Setup, I can't change to the CD as the boot drive. I don't know why that is and it's a surprise to me, too.

Is there a way around this? Right now, all I have to boot with is the floppy and thank goodness for that old pal.

 

You guys are wonderful! I've never had such quick responses to questions.

Well, let me tell you what I'm working with here. I have a Systemax AMD Athlon64 - 3200 with 1GB RAM and two hard drives (one Samsung 120 GB factory installed), one (unfortuantely) Maxtor 160 GB. The Maxtor has always been a major pain and I just learned that they are faulty because of dirty factory environment. Got this from someone who had to pull them out of 200 computers and replace with Seagates.

The computer is only 6 months old.

I am willing to pull the battery and, yes, the C is the Master and the E is the Slave, but it's never worked that way. It boots, recognizes the drives (usually) but also gives me a message that they aren't functional--but THEY ARE! Go figure.

Well, I'm trying to see this as a learning experience and just stick with it. Thanks to all of you for your help so far. Keep it coming, everyone. I truly appreciate it.

 

Just for a test....mind you....disconnect the hard drive and see if you can boot to the cdrom....


Also, some specs would be nice...is this a custom built computer? Or a name brand like dell or hp?

 

Okay, I just managed to change the boot order and now have the CD as the boot drive. I'll try re-installing XP again and, if it lets me, set all drivers back to the factory install.

BTW, I don't know which RAID it is. Ran off a copy of the specs and can't find it now.

Wish me luck as I remove the battery (after trying that second install with the CD).

 

I am going to pull the second hard drive, too. It's been nothing but trouble since the day I put it in.

 

Yup, just did it. Thanks.

 

Okay, pulled the second drive, changed the boot drive to CD and it's still saying it can't find a hard drive on my machine.

Pull the battery to set the BIOS next?

 

Is the hard drive set as CS (Cable select) or Master? I'd set it as master. Also, is the CDROM drive and the Hard drive (HDD) on the same IDE cable? If so, use two.

If all else fails reboot...errr use the battery method

 

Okay, I am now going to see, also, if American Megatrends has a new bios for this computer. I noted that the one in there is V0.2.54 and it might be interesting to see if they've updated it and if they gave any reasons for that.

 

I think it is set as Master and Slave on a separate cable; one for the CD and one (each with two cable connections) for the hard drive. So, they don't share the same cable, but I will set the hard drive to CS, just in case.

Thanks. Off to see if the BIOS has been updated.

 

I just took the battery out, waited and rebooted. Still won't recognize the C drive.

So, I've tried all the suggestions to date.

Any more?

Thanks

 

What do you know about RAID? I have a small floppy, but if the hard drive can't be recognized and setting the BIOS back to factory default didn't work, what's left?

BTW, just cleaned the fan and fins on the CPU cooler and have a feeling that was the first thing I should have done. It's running 30 degrees cooler now. Might have been the problem in the first place, but now the thing is to get that hard drive recognized.

Thanks.

 

Okay, decided to call the "help" line for Systemax and the guy was great. Seems the AMD64 has fried itself and was running too hot. They're sending me a new unit and heat sink and suggested I purchase a Super Cooler from a computer store because AMDs run hot. He said he's heard a lot of these problems and it's the CPU that's the problem here.

So, off to CompUSA to get a cooler.