My Hard Drives have Vanished !!??

Recently I have installed a rack with a 120GB hard drive in it, into my case and plugged it into my 3rd IDE port. It didn't register on windows, but exists in the BIOS. What was worse is my second hard drive (Drive D), which is plugged into IDE 2, which worked fine for ages until now with all my movies & saved items disappeared from the face of Windows XP. This also registers in the BIOS, but not on XP. Now, my card reader, which is connected internally and mounted as part of the case has vanished (it used to regiser on "My Computer" as a series of removable drives). My boot disk is a 250GB SATA, so is unaffected. I have checked the BIOS and the IDE ports are in AUTO. IDE 1 has my CDRW & DVDRW in it. I have tried removing the disks & rebooting, then putting them back in. Drive D has always been selected as a slave drive (& still is). The new drive in the rack Has been tried as both slave and master, with no joy. I took the new HDD back to the shop, who tested it and said it was fine.

I have a KT400 motherboard (number MS 6590) with 1024 mb RAM, a Radeon 9700 PRO Graphics Card, AMD Athlon XP 2800, 250GB SATA drive (boot up drive) and 1 old, but not registering as even existing 120GB HDD (with all my important stuff on it!) and 1 new, but not registering as existing 120GB HDD.

I am satified that both the HDD's are in good working order and they show up as existing in the BIOS at boot up. Win XP does not even recognise them as existing at all.

Please help!

 

what is the configuration of your IDE cables?

do you have a CDROM plugged in as master on the same cable as your old (slave) hard drive?

If that works and your new hard drive can have its own IDE cable, set it to single drive (or master in some cases) and plug it into the end of the IDE cable. then you have to partition and format it through windows.

Open control panel, go to Administrative Tools> Computer Management> Disk Management (on the left).

you should see all your hard drives there, including your new Raw one, which you can partition and format.

 

Also check for any resource conflicts. It may be that you have too many drives trying to use the same(IRQ?) resouce at the same time.

 

Hi, my IDE config is as follows:

IDE 1 = The vanished HDD drive (D) - the D slot has now become my DVD writer!

IDE 2 = CDRW - Slave & DVD RW - Master - it's been in that config since I bought the pc

IDE 3 = New HDD.

How do I check for rescource conflicts to see if too many drives are trying to use the same IRQ? What's an IRQ?

 

Are all of these drives interconnected by one cable?

Or do you mean

Cable 1- Vanished HD
Cable 2 CD-RW &DVD RW
Cable 3 New HD

?


How many hard drives are you trying to install at once on this computer?

 

Cable 1 - Original but now vanished HDD (was drive D)
Cable 2 - CD RW (slave) & DVD RW Master - (both showing as detected)
Cable 3 - New but undetected HDD

Operating System HDD is SATA

In total I am looking to connect 3 Hard drives - 2 VIA IDE 1 Via SATA

When I disconnect the ne HDD, I still cannot detect the other HDD on Cable 1 and Vice versa. Is there some way I can tell the PC to detect them again?

Originally the pc was configured like this:

Cable 1 - Boot HDD (master) Second drive (Slave) - which is the one I seem to have lost

Cable 2 - DVD RW (Master) CD RW (Slave)

 

After rereading you initial post, I've come to the belief that you are attempting to add a 5th IDE drive to your system. Could it be that your board or OS is not set up for this?

 

Cable 1 - Original but now vanished HDD (was drive D)
Cable 2 - CD RW (slave) & DVD RW Master - (both showing as detected)
Cable 3 - New but undetected HDD

Operating System HDD is SATA

In total I am looking to connect 3 Hard drives - 2 VIA IDE 1 Via SATA.

When I disconnect the one HDD, I still cannot detect the other HDD on Cable 1 and Vice versa. Is there some way I can tell the PC to detect them again?

Originally the pc was configured like this:

Cable 1 - Boot HDD (master) Second drive (Slave) - which is the one I seem to have lost

Cable 2 - DVD RW (Master) CD RW (Slave)

The setup then changed to:
Boot HDD - SATA
IDE 1 (cable 1) - slave drive
IDE 2 (cable 2) - CD RW & DVD RW

This setup worked fine for ages until I tried connecting the new drive which it wouldn't pick up. I then disconnected the old slave drive (my storage drive) to see if it would then pick up the new drive. It didn't, but when I reconnected this drive (D) without the new drive connected, it wouldn't detect it at all, apart from in the BIOS. The bios settings are ok from what I can see.

 

Ok here's what I believe to be your problem. Your board is only set up to handle 4 drives, whether they be IDE ot SATA. This is why. Most BIOS are set to recieve a Primary Master Drive,a Primary Slave drive, a Secondary Master Drive, and a Secondary Slave Drive, and that is all.

If you want to use a 5th drive you will probably want to look into setting up your system with a RAID. A Raid will allow(I believe) up to 15 devices.

If I am correct in this, then the reason you are loosing your D drive is because the new drive and the original D drive are conflicting as slaves on your board. Again, if I am correct, then removing the new drive should restore the original D drive.

If you don't need the CD-RW you might want to remove that and install the new HD in its place.

 

Try this remove both of them then start in safe mode. Make sure both drives do not appear in Windows Explorer. Then restart into normal mode. Then reinstall the drive you want in there ( original D drive) and see if that works.

 

this is how I set up my SATA in the BIOS: ... not sure how much this will help

IDE Channel 1: 80 GB HDD - Master
250 GB HDD - slave
IDE Channel 2: DVD/CDR Dr - single (shows as master in the BIOS)
IDE Channel 3: SATA 80 GB HDD - single (shows as master in the BIOS)

there was also some settings in the "Integrated Periphrals":
OnChip Serial ATA Mode - IDE
OnChip Serial ATA - Enhanced Mode
- Serial ATA 1 Mode - IDE-3 Master
and in the "Advanced BIOS Features" Menu:
Hard Disk Boot Priority - [press enter and set your SATA drive you want to boot from into the first position]

i think the important thing is to use SATA enhanced mode + IDE mode ... im fairly certain that enhanced mode lets you set up more than 4 HDDs

 

I'm afraid that did not work. I removed ALL devices except the SATA, booted up in safe mode, shut down, rebooted with only the old D drive attatched and the cd drives removed too, but there was nothing there. I have also tried to do a disk rescan and seach for additional hardware, but to no avail. Incidentally, when D is attatched it takes about 3 times as long to boot up.

When all the disks are attatched, it shows the New drive as pri master and D drive as pri slave, and dvd as sec master and cd as sec slave in the bios. It's infuriating

 

Ok, let try something else.

Go to your Device Manager. Look for "Hard Disk Controllers", or something to that effect. Open that and tell us what you have listed there.

Also look for "CD-ROM" or something like it, and tell us what is listed there.

Also look for anything that has a Yellow or red mark or symbol on it ( this is an indication of something wrong). Let us know if you find any of these, and what they are.

 

I don't have all the above mentioned features in my BIOS. I've also tried just about every IDE change & combination available, so I don't think it's the BIOS.

 

At some point while rebooting etc I seem to have got my card reader back. It is attatched internally as a USB device anyway and not IDE.

I couldn't find Hard Disk controllers, just Disk drives, under which there are 4 of my removable drives from the card reader and the SATA drive reading:

PROMISE 1+0 STRIPE/RAID0 SCSI DISK DRIVE

No sign of any other hard drives, even in disk manager - no sign.

Under CD ROM is this:

HL-DT-ST CD-RW GCE-8480B
SONY DVD RW - DW - D22A

If I can only get my old drive (D) back and forget about the new one, I'll be happy now!

 

Did you see any thing that might have a listing for your IDE controllers?

Take a look and see if you can find anything that has some kind of Ultra ATA Controller.
These will be your hard disk controllers for the IDE drives.
Look for them both in nomal and in safe mode. In normal mode you might not see them. If you find them let us know exactly what you have listed. You will probably find one that might say Serial ATA Controller, that one is the SATA, the others will be for your IDE HD's.

These will not be listed under Disk Drives, they will be somewhere else.

 

I have IDE ATA/ATAPI CONTROLLER
Under this after double clicking is:
Primary IDE Channel
Secondary IDE Channel
VIA BUS Master IDE

Double clicking on any of them says "This device is working properly"

 

Ok, those look ok. Did you see anything at all in the device manager that had a problem mark? This might be a yellow question mark or something of that nature.

 

Just a quick question. Did you check the jumper settings on the drives, this last time when you removed the new drive and put the original D drive back in?

 

No yellow marks visible. The D drive has always had no jumper in it. This sets it to slave, according to what is on top of the drive. I have tried it as set to master too.

 

When you originally put the new drive in what was the jumper setting on it?

Also at any time were the new drive and the D drive both set for either master or slave at the same time while you had them installed on the same cable?

 

Have you run your Hardware Troubleshooter yet?

 

The jumper setting on the ne drive when i put it in had not jumper. I had meant to set it to master, but left the jumper out.

At no time were either of them on the same cable. However, I did fit the new drive with no jumper on it also at the same time as the original D drive had no jumper.

 

I found this at Microsoft.

To diagnose device problems
You must be logged on as an administrator or a member of the Administrators group in order to complete this procedure. If your computer is connected to a network, network policy settings may also prevent you from completing this procedure.

1. Open Add Hardware in Control Panel.
2. Click Next. Windows will try to detect new Plug and Playif ("function"==typeof(adjPopup)) adjPopup() devices.
3. Under Installed hardware, choose the device you want to diagnose and fix, and then click Next.
4. Click Finish to open the troubleshooter, and then follow the instructions on the screen.

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/home/using/productdoc/en/note.gif Note

• To open the Add Hardware Wizard, click Start, click Control Panel, and then click Printers and Other Hardware. Under See Also, click Add Hardware.
• If you cannot find the device in the list, click Add a new hardware device, and then follow the instructions on the screen.
• You can also perform some diagnostic tasks, including repairing devices that are not working properly, using Device Managerif ("function"==typeof(adjPopup)) adjPopup() This is recommended only for users who have an expert understanding of devices and device configurations. For more information, click Related Topics

 

I have never had a list of instructions from Microsoft that have actually been any use, and sadly, this is no exception. It did not offer me the chance to install any hard drives, only IDE ports, which already have drivers installed. This list of instructions was one of the first things I tried, I have just had another go with no joy.

 

The hardware troubleshooter did not recognise the drive was there, so could not troubleshoot it.

 

Has anybody got any more ideas before I wipe my System and reinstall it?

 

Please try your hard drives one at a time, and jumper them as master. If each drive is recognized when set as master, then it could be some weird problem with the cable select function which it sounds like you are trying to use. I have always had better luck using the master/slave configuration.

 

Sadly, this is one of the first things I did after trying the microsoft "troubleshooter". As mentioned earlier in my list of things I went through with the help of tigerray00, I tried unplugging all drives and then connecting one at a time as master. This did not have any effect whatsoever. The drives were still not registering anywhere on windows, but were showing up upon startup in the BIOS. Again however, I'm quite sure it is not a BIOS problem. The only thing to try next is wipe my SATA drive and start a fresh in the hope that these drives will be picked up this time. I'm going to start doing this in about an hour or so. Any suggestions in the next hour please??

 

You said that you tried them as Master, but didn't say whether you jumpered them as such, hence my post!

 

Yes, they were jumpered as master.

 

If BIOS doesn't pick the drives up then re-installing windows isn't going to help.
Try disconnecting the sata drive and installing windows on an ide. If the sata drive is at fault then BIOS should pick up the ide drives.
I also think it's too many drives on one board.

 

Did you try them one at a time jumpered as slave also?

I'm assuming you have the SATA set as master, and as primary boot in the bios.
If this is the case, then the next logical primary should be slave.

One last thing you could try is to remove all the drives, including the SATA. Reboot until it stops. It will either go into BIOS setup or give you some kind of invalid disk error. Then install each drive one at a time until you get to the original configuration. I

f this works, then you might want to do some research on how to set up a RAID. That way you can add all the drives you want. When you go through the BIOS does it say anything about RAID anywhere?

Your board may already be RAID capable.

 

BIOS DOES pick up the drives and has selected the IDE drives as master and slave accordingly. Upon opening windows though, there is no sign of them at all, anywhere.