HELP !! HDD doesnay get detected..

maarksparky

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Hi folks..

I have a 80GB HDD, 250GB HDD, a DVD writer and a CD writer..

everyknow and then the mother does not detect my 80GB HDD which is running windows.. when I take one of the IDE out, it works and then its fine for few days and same again.. the 250GB doesnay show in BIOS but shows ok in windows.. but its doing my headin.. please help guys !!

any suggestions !!
 
How is each device connected? IDE? SATA?

If all are IDE check the jumper settings, i.e. master --- slave --------- mobo

Cable select can cause problems on some hardware.

If the 250GB is SATA, check the 80GB is set to master and put it on its own IDE cable i.e. 80GB --- empty --------- mobo
 
thanks mate..

they are all connected via IDE cables.. what worries me that it was all working fine.. until recently, the 80gig HDD doesnt get detected..

when I take other devices off its fine but then i cant use other drives :(

thought it was the IDE cable but tried another one still no luck..

any more suggestions.
 
Unknown Device Identifier

great tool was in the downloads section if its still closed I can pass it on if you want normally detects unknown drives


although pob is right as said above i never use cable select just master and slave on both ide cables check your jumpers before you try finding software
 
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IDE controllers can fail, but, AFAIK, you'd loose both drives on that cable not just one.

After checking your not using cable select, try rearranging the drives if possible. Put the hard drives as masters on seperate cables with the optical drives as slaves. Obviously this will depend on the length of the cables and your case.
 
Assume you've tried another cable?

Do you get teh same if the HD is set to Master or Slave?

Try going ti the manufacturers site for the HD, download the disk utilities and check the drive out.
 
might have picked up a virus , and its fooked up your boot sector.


unplug all the other hard drives, and do a clean install from your windows cd, make sure you do an fdisk, then format first. This will clear all the partitions and will get rid of any crap thats on the boot sectors
 
You wouldn't be running an ASROCK mobo by any chance mate would you.

Only reason i ask i had very similar problems where (IDE) drive would not be detected from my mobo, it wouldn't detected on boot up but would show in windows, i tried new cables and would still do it on occasion, i didnt have another drive at the time to try and see if it would do the same

Sometimes just ended up trying to push cables back in and seemed to work on occasions, other times it wouldn't, i even tried as suggested on here by splitting them, having one drive and optical on one and still at times only one would show up

In the end got new mobo been ok since(touch wood lol) but have lost the drive that wouldnt show up in the end about 18 month later, just clicking so not too sure if the drive was starting to give up
 
thanks mate.. its not ASROCK... its an Intel 865GLC.. has a latest version of BIOS.

been reading in other places, and some folk suggest that its the PSU failing.. could that be an option???
 
Failing PSU can cause odd problems, I had one that caused the DVDRW drive to read/write CDs, read DVDs but not burn DVDs - just putting a blank DVD in caused windows to detect the drive as CDROM drive. However, you could end up replacing the whole PC before you find out what the problem is.

Try running repair mode in check disk: Start > Run > cmd > CHKDSK C:/R (where 'C' is the drive letter of the 80Gb drive). As this is the windows drive it will run at the next boot. More on chkdsk: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/315265

Just to confirm:
Have you tried the hard drives on seperate IDE channels?
Have you confirmed the jumper settings on both the hard drives and optical drives?
Have you checked if the hard drive manufacturer has diagnositc tools to see if its a hard drive failure?

As I had a similar problem on an old PC, but on the secondary channel, I would err on the side of a failing IDE chip. However, I wouldn't want to recommend replacing the mobo only to find that it was just that the 80Gb had faulty sectors in the MBR - hence recommending chkdsk.
 
little_pob's advice is sound and I have had HD's that the bios, all of a sudden, would not detect as slaves but would as masters. So the best way to see if this HD is a problem is to get the manufactures utilities, as I hinted in an erlier post, because they will tell you for sure if the HD is a problem. They are easy to get hold of, run from a floppy at boot, and will take about 15 mins to run a test.

Guess we assume you have tried an alternative PSU just to be sure, even try swapping the power connectors to the HD on your existing PSU, you never know.

This is a long shot but how old is your cmos battery? Try changing it.
 
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