XP does not see second hard drive.

  • Thread starter Thread starter Rod Farmer
  • Start date Start date
R

Rod Farmer

I have used removable drives for some years, and occasionally when I swap
the drives the system fails to recognise the drive because it has not
mechanically connected correctly. Usually withdrawing the drive and
re-inserting it making sure to push it firmly home fixed the problem. It
may not be the problem but try it anyway.

Rod
 
I normally use Ghost 2003 to backup to a second hard drive that I pop
into a caddy. It works very well until now when for some reason the
Primary Master disk operating system does not see the backup disk in
the caddy.(Secondary Master).
The BIOS sees them both.
It is a windows thing. I do not get as far as Ghost.
It is in the main disk OS I think. When I swop them around and use the
backup disk as the main disk, it sees the other disk as it should.
You may think Why not use the backup as the main disk? Well there is a
lot of stuff on the main disk that is not yet on the backup.

Any leads would be welcome. Looks like changes in the rgistry are
needed-- but what?


brsk
 
Thanks. Tried that but no success.

I don't think that BIOS would see the disk if the contacts were poor?
Which bit of XP does the recognition actions?


brsk
 
If you go to Control Panel/Admin tools/Computer management and in the
Storage tree select Disk Management can you see the removable drive?

If not you may need to check all the connections from the drive itself
through the caddy and to the IDE connections (including power) on the
motherboard. What happens if you connect the drive directly i.e not via the
caddy?

If you can 'see' the drive are you sure you have not inadvertently deleted
the partition and the drive is all free space!!!

Failing any of these I don't know what to suggest - hopefully you will have
more informed replies.

Rod
 
Thanks.
No, it doesn't show in Disk Management, or Device Manager,or System
Info. Very odd.
But it does in the BIOS.
I am very reluctant to do a repair install because I lose SP1 and all
the updates.


brsk
 
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