Slave hard drive not appearing in My Computer

  • Thread starter Thread starter Holly
  • Start date Start date
H

Holly

OK, so I've set up my shiney new computer (a frakenbox,
I'll admit) I install XP home, decide to move some
files, and, whaddia know! My slave hard drive isn't
showing up in My Computer. I've checked the jumper
settings, and replaced the IDE cable, made sure
everything was nice and snug, etc...


Any other ideas? I guess I could drop the current
primary and just have the secondary(rejumpering to
master, and plugging into the primary IDE cable slot),
but I don't want to risk loosing my data...
 
Holly said:
OK, so I've set up my shiney new computer (a frakenbox,
I'll admit) I install XP home, decide to move some
files, and, whaddia know! My slave hard drive isn't
showing up in My Computer. I've checked the jumper
settings, and replaced the IDE cable, made sure
everything was nice and snug, etc...


Any other ideas? I guess I could drop the current
primary and just have the secondary(rejumpering to
master, and plugging into the primary IDE cable slot),
but I don't want to risk loosing my data...
Click to expand...

Is the primary [old] hard drive on the end of the ribbon cable and the
secondary [new] drive on the middle connector?

Are the drives configured for cable select, or is the primary configured
as master and the secondary configured as slave?

Did you check the BIOS to see if it detects the second drive? When you
boot and after the POST, do you see the drive listed in the table of
found hard drives?

If you unplug power to the primary drive but leave power plugged into
the new second drive, do you hear it spin up when you power up?

Have you tried removing [the ribbon cable from] the old primary drive,
jumpering the new second drive as master, and booting with a
DOS-bootable floppy to see if you can access the new drive using FDISK
and FORMAT?
 
Hi Holly,

Check the BIOS detection settings for that location, is the drive seen
there?

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Associate Expert - WindowsXP Expert Zone

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
 
Vanguardx said:
Holly said:
OK, so I've set up my shiney new computer (a frakenbox,
I'll admit) I install XP home, decide to move some
files, and, whaddia know! My slave hard drive isn't
showing up in My Computer. I've checked the jumper
settings, and replaced the IDE cable, made sure
everything was nice and snug, etc...


Any other ideas? I guess I could drop the current
primary and just have the secondary(rejumpering to
master, and plugging into the primary IDE cable slot),
but I don't want to risk loosing my data...
Click to expand...

Is the primary [old] hard drive on the end of the ribbon cable and the
secondary [new] drive on the middle connector?

Are the drives configured for cable select, or is the primary
configured as master and the secondary configured as slave?

Did you check the BIOS to see if it detects the second drive? When
you boot and after the POST, do you see the drive listed in the table
of found hard drives?

If you unplug power to the primary drive but leave power plugged into
the new second drive, do you hear it spin up when you power up?

Have you tried removing [the ribbon cable from] the old primary drive,
jumpering the new second drive as master, and booting with a
DOS-bootable floppy to see if you can access the new drive using FDISK
and FORMAT?
Click to expand...

One other thing. If you run the Disk Management applet (diskmgmt.msc),
does the drive then show up? If so, use the Action -> Scan menu to
rescan your drives.
 
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