Hard drive not recognized(XP Home)

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Guest

Hi,

I've been using a Western Digital Hard Drive with firewire connection for
several months now. Just recently, my PC fails to recognize the drive. Any
help is much appreciated.
 
I'm having the same problem. Will try to make this short. Installed
ethernet card, but couldn't get an internet connection. Tried for several
hours, then gave up. Then noticed that both external hard drives (connected
via firewire) were missing from My Computer. Device manager shows the
firewire port as functioning normally. Tried System Restore to point before
installing ethernet card, still no firewire connection. The next day,
managed to get the ethernet card to work, but still no firewire connection.
Purchased a firewire pci card, installed it (installed ok), but still won't
detect external hard drives. Tried the firewire pci card in my brother's PC,
it worked fine...external hard drives recognized ok. Again tried the pci
card in my PC, installed ok, but won't see external drive. The external hard
drives, the firewire cables and the firewire pci card all work in my
brother's PC, just not in mine. I can plug the external hard drive into a
USB slot and it works just fine (have USB ver 1.1 so prefer to use firewire).

It seems like Windows XP is somehow blocking the recognition of anything
plugged into the firewire ports. I realize that the onboard firewire port
may have gotten damaged, but the firewire pci card DOES work, just not in my
PC.
Any ideas?
 
Ok, I tried again. I uninstalled pci firewire card, ethernet card and modem
card (which I don't currently need). Rebooted and checked device manager, no
problems. Then installed pci firewire card into a different slot and booted
up. As windows was loading, I heard the familiar bing bong sound that windows
makes when something is inserted into a usb or firewire slot, but I had
nothing plugged into them. I then tried plugging one of my external hard
drives into the pci firewire card and IT WORKED!!!! I attached the 2nd
external hard drive to the 1st and IT ALSO WORKED!!!! So at this moment I had
both of my external drives showing up, but no ethernet card installed yet. I
safely removed both external hard drives and tried them in the onboard
firewire port, no detection. I tried them in the pci firewire card port again
and they WERE detected.
At this point I still had no internet. I looked at System Information and
checked the IRQ assignments. I decided to try the last slot for the ethernet
card. Shut down, installed and rebooted. I let windows install the ethernet
card and plugged the internet cable in....IT WORKED!!!!
My BIOS does not allow me to assign IRQs, so I have to work with what I
have. I tried searching for a BIOS update, submitted a request to
esupport.com and the response was: Phoenix made the BIOS and sold it to
Compaq, who modified it. So the only way to update it was to get the update
from Compaq. Compaq (HP) had nothing available for my older pc. So until I
ever get a newer pc, I'll just deal with what I have.

So if this helps:
My IRQs for my pci slots are
slot 1, IRQ 11
slot 2, IRQ 5
slot 3, IRQ 10
slot 4, IRQ 5 or 10
slot 5, IRQ 11
These I found out by installing cards and checking System Information, IRQs.
Slot 4 showed IRQ5 at one point, IRQ10 at another (maybe I didn't make note
correctly?).

So currently I have:
Video card in the AGP slot, IRQ 10
Slot 1, sound card, IRQ 11
Slot 2, empty, IRQ 5 (my onboard firewire is also using this IRQ)
Slot 3, pci firewire card, IRQ 10 (sharing with video card)
Slot 4, empty, IRQ 5 or 10
Slot 5, ethernet card, IRQ 11 (sharing with sound card and 2 onboard USB
controllers)

Something that I have learned from all this is that if switching devices, I
need to UNINSTALL the older device first, before installing the new device
(as in going from internet-usb to internet-ethernet). I looked through my
Road Runner install kit and it said nothing about switching connection types,
it only showed how to hook up either one or the other. The Motorola cable
modem (supplied by Road Runner) did not come with any instructions or
paperwork (an oversight by the install guy?)
 
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