XP cant see 2nd drive

  • Thread starter Thread starter franko
  • Start date Start date
F

franko

My daughters old Dell 8200 desktop quit - we dont know what happened
but we suspect she left it on during a thunderstorm and perhaps there
was a tremendous jolt that the surge protector couldn't handle - not
sure though. The original symptom was 'it's dead' - no fan, no hum, no
beep, no led, no boot to bios, nothing at all...dead.

My suspicion was the psuu so i connected a known good one which
provided power to the mb (fan worked but still no beeps, no booting,
no anything). So then I reseated all the cards and all the memory
sticks. Nothing. I exchanged the display card. Nothing.Removed the
heatsink and reseated the cpu . Nothing.

We accepted that the computer is probabbly toast but wanted to try and
recover some data

Then I took the hard drive (an old 40gb ATA) out and installed it in
another computer as a second (slave) drive. It was tough to get the
machine to boot but I moved the master/slave jumpers around a little
on both hd 's and eventually got past the bios etc to Windows.

* Problem
is that this 2nd hard drive isnt seen by windows XP although it IS
seen in the Bios.

I've tried via My Computer , Windows Explorer , device manager). I
guess usually one has to format it to be seen
but of course I cant do that if 1.) i want the data and 2) windows
doesnt find it

Is there a solution?
Alternatively I thought of maybe buying an enclosure and trying to
read it via a USB connection as an external.

Thanks for any help
F
 
Hi,
Assuming you have set the master/slave links in the right positions then you
need to look at the drive using "disk managements". Right click "my
computer" and select "manage", In the left hand pane select disk management
and see if the old drive is seen there. If it is then you can "explore" from
there or allocate a drive letter.
If not then check the master/slave link again. What ribbon are you
connecting to, IDE0 or IDE1in other words the hard drive ribbon or the
CD/DVD ribbon. You would normally set the second drive as slave.

Neil
 
Hi,
Assuming you have set the master/slave links in the right positions then you
need to look at the drive using "disk managements". Right click "my
computer" and select "manage", In the left hand pane select disk management
and see if the old drive is seen there. If it is then you can "explore" from
there or allocate a drive letter.
If not then check the master/slave link again. What ribbon are you
connecting to, IDE0 or IDE1in other words the hard drive ribbon or the
CD/DVD ribbon. You would normally set the second drive as slave.
Click to expand...

Thanks Neil.
I did try to find it in Disk management but it is not seen there
either.
It is connected on the same ribbon cable - it is daisy chained.
The master/slave jumper pin settings must be ok because 1) when they
were in other positions the Bios couldnt see them as such and now it
does find both
 
Hi,
There is a possibility the drive was also damaged during the thunderstorm.
Have you checked the original drive doesn't need to be set as "master with
slave connected".?
You could try to connect the old drive as your master drive and it should
start in "safemode" although it probably won't start in normal mode, but it
should prove if the drive is still accessible.
When you checked in device manager did it show both drives.?
I have to ask again, when you set the master & slave links are they set as
master on the original drive and slave on the second drive.?
Neil
 
Yes the drive may well be toast.
I'm not sure of which pin the jumper must be placed on for each but by
trial and error the configuration i have now is the only one that
'works' and the master and slave are seen as such in the Bios On Aug
 
With different drive manufactures the typical jumper settings for a Master
with Slave may not work.
You may need to try several jumper combinations
Example: Set the Samsung jumper to Master and the Seagate jumper to Cable
Select (CS).
If the above combination does not work check each drive's possible jumper
configurations and
try a couple of configuration such as both drives set to "Cable Select" or
other combos.

JS
 
JS said:
With different drive manufactures the typical jumper settings for a
Master with Slave may not work.
You may need to try several jumper combinations
Example: Set the Samsung jumper to Master and the Seagate jumper to
Cable Select (CS).
If the above combination does not work check each drive's possible
jumper configurations and
try a couple of configuration such as both drives set to "Cable
Select" or other combos.

JS
Click to expand...


Another possibility is to connect the old drive to a USB port, using a
HDD "caddy". That way, you can boot the computer normally, without
changing any settings on the primary drive.

When you insert the old drive in the caddy, follow the manufacturer's
instructions. You will probably need to set the jumpers to Cable Select
(or CS).

If the computer does not recognize the old drive (or cannot read any
data from the drive) when it is connected via a USB caddy, then it may
be "fried".
 
franko said:
Re the caddy - that is one of the points I was asking about in my
original post - "is it a viable idea to try"

and thank you for the links to the jumper positions.

I will need some time to work with all this info

Thanks again
F
Click to expand...


A caddy is the easiest way to access files on an external HDD. You
don't need to remove the case from your computer - and you don't need to
change any of the settings on your computer.

You merely insert the drive in the caddy. Normally, set the jumpers to
Cable Select or CS - but you should follow any manufacturer's
instructions in this respect.

Then, plug the caddy into a spare USB port on your computer. Provided
the drive is OK, it should be visible in "My Computer" and you should be
able to access files and folders.
 
Using a caddy is a good option so long as the drive is OK, I don't think you
are sure it is yet...? Otherwise you will buy the caddy only to find the
drive doesn't work. If it is OK then after the files are recovered you can
format the drive in windows and use it to either transfer files or perhaps a
backup.
Another option to try to establish if the drive is working would be to try
booting using a floppy disk, connect only the suspect drive and boot using
the floppy.
You can create it from windows if you have a floppy disk drive. (if not then
this advice is useless)
Once the floppy has booted you will have a dos prompt:
i.e. A:\>
type C:\ (press return)
type dir (press return)
a list of files and folders should be listed, if so then the drive is
working. If there is an error message and the files/folders are not listed
then the drive isn't working.
Neil
 
Using a caddy is a good option so long as the drive is OK, I don't think you
are sure it is yet...? Otherwise you will buy the caddy only to find the
drive doesn't work. If it is OK then after the files are recovered you can
format the drive in windows and use it to either transfer files or perhaps a
backup.
Another option to try to establish if the drive is working would be to try
booting using a floppy disk, connect only the suspect drive and boot using
the floppy.
You can create it from windows if you have a floppy disk drive. (if not then
this advice is useless)
Once the floppy has booted you will have a dos prompt:
i.e. A:\>
type C:\ (press return)
type dir (press return)
a list of files and folders should be listed, if so then the drive is
working. If there is an error message and the files/folders are not listed
then the drive isn't working.
Click to expand...

Booting with a floppy and having only the one suspect hard drive
connected was a good idea!
When I get the A: prompt I cant go anywhere from there - it doesn't
find any other drive and considers C: or any other letter invalid.
I even had a boot floppy that I'd made years ago as a Partition Magic
rescue disk and the PQ utility sees the hard drive and even lets me
label it with a new letter.
I guess that confirms that the hard drive is fried.
 
Have a look at this tool: Active@ Partition Recovery
The 'Demo' mode is free to try, it will at least let you know if there is
something left to recover.
You can't fix the problem with the demo version but read the web page info
and try it.
http://www.partition-recovery.com/

JS
 
If DOS wont let you change to the C:\ drive then I would suspect the drive
is duff. You can try JSs suggestion that may allow you to recover data. (not
used it myself so I don't know)

hard luck (unless you can recover something, then yippee)
backups are a wonderful thing, especially as hind site.
Neil
 
NOT AT ALL!!! DOS cannot read NTFS so it won't be able to access the
drive! The drive *may* be toast, we don't know that, but by no means is
the inability to access it in DOS a conclusive indication that the drive
is duff!

John
 
OK fair point I forgot about that.
Sorry Frank I mislead you there.
Neil
Click to expand...

I did (with the PQ utility) convert it to fat from ntfs prior to
trying to access it from the dos prompt
 
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