HDD's not recognised at bootup! TIA.

[sandy58]

My apologies if this NG is the wrong choice.
I have a recurring problem with my hard drives (2)
not being recognised in bootup. Mostly both but sometimes just C:
Up till this moment my "cure" has been to pull the IDE ribbons &
re-plug them,
and generally check all/any connections I can see. Both hdd's are
partitioned (50%).
Main drive (250GB) c: & e:. 2nd drive (200gb) d: & f:
I recently (three months ago) attached a 300gb external drive (USB).
The external drive is working fine when required. This "recognition"
problem started in
this three month period (coincidence?). My PC is home-built. P4 3.2gh,
2 gb memory,
All fans & heatsinks cleaned (blown out) regularly. Temps fine. (My PC
& I live in Scotland,
a country NOT known for tropical climates The only ABNORMAL
temperature increase is MINE!
Any suggestions gratefully accepted & will be followed-up on.
Any further info supplied on demand.TIA
sandy58

 

[greg77 via WindowsKB.com]

My apologies if this NG is the wrong choice.
I have a recurring problem with my hard drives (2)
not being recognised in bootup. Mostly both but sometimes just C:
Up till this moment my "cure" has been to pull the IDE ribbons &
re-plug them,
and generally check all/any connections I can see. Both hdd's are
partitioned (50%).
Main drive (250GB) c: & e:. 2nd drive (200gb) d: & f:
I recently (three months ago) attached a 300gb external drive (USB).
The external drive is working fine when required. This "recognition"
problem started in
this three month period (coincidence?). My PC is home-built. P4 3.2gh,
2 gb memory,
All fans & heatsinks cleaned (blown out) regularly. Temps fine. (My PC
& I live in Scotland,
a country NOT known for tropical climates The only ABNORMAL
temperature increase is MINE!
Any suggestions gratefully accepted & will be followed-up on.
Any further info supplied on demand.TIA
sandy58

Well, I'm no computer wiz, but, you didn't mention wether or not you had the
hard drives set for one to be the master HD and the other to be the slave HD.
It sounds like you know what your talking about so I would emagine you
already thought of that but I thought I'd mention it just in case it was
overlooked. GF

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

My apologies if this NG is the wrong choice.
I have a recurring problem with my hard drives (2)
not being recognised in bootup. Mostly both but sometimes just C:
Up till this moment my "cure" has been to pull the IDE ribbons &
re-plug them,
and generally check all/any connections I can see. Both hdd's are
partitioned (50%).
Main drive (250GB) c: & e:. 2nd drive (200gb) d: & f:
I recently (three months ago) attached a 300gb external drive (USB).
The external drive is working fine when required. This "recognition"
problem started in
this three month period (coincidence?). My PC is home-built. P4 3.2gh,
2 gb memory,
All fans & heatsinks cleaned (blown out) regularly. Temps fine. (My PC
& I live in Scotland,
a country NOT known for tropical climates The only ABNORMAL
temperature increase is MINE!
Any suggestions gratefully accepted & will be followed-up on.
Any further info supplied on demand.TIA
sandy58

Seeing that the disks are not recognised at boot time, your
question has nothing to do with Windows. I recommend that
you repost it in a hardware newsgroup.

 

[Roberto]

My apologies if this NG is the wrong choice.
I have a recurring problem with my hard drives (2)
not being recognised in bootup. Mostly both but sometimes just C:
Up till this moment my "cure" has been to pull the IDE ribbons &
re-plug them,
and generally check all/any connections I can see. Both hdd's are
partitioned (50%).
Main drive (250GB) c: & e:. 2nd drive (200gb) d: & f:
I recently (three months ago) attached a 300gb external drive (USB).
The external drive is working fine when required. This "recognition"
problem started in
this three month period (coincidence?). My PC is home-built. P4 3.2gh,
2 gb memory,
All fans & heatsinks cleaned (blown out) regularly. Temps fine. (My PC
& I live in Scotland,
a country NOT known for tropical climates The only ABNORMAL
temperature increase is MINE!
Any suggestions gratefully accepted & will be followed-up on.
Any further info supplied on demand.TIA
sandy58

Testing both drives with the manufacture's diagnostic tools would be a
good place to start, if all OK replace the ribbon cables.

rgds
Roberto

 

[sandy58]

Well, I'm no computer wiz, but, you didn't mention wether or not you had the
hard drives set for one to be the master HD and the other to be the slave HD.
It sounds like you know what your talking about so I would emagine you
already thought of that but I thought I'd mention it just in case it was
overlooked. GF

All fine in that respect, greg77 & thanks for your response.

 

[sandy58]

Testing both drives with the manufacture's diagnostic tools would be a
good place to start, if all OK replace the ribbon cables.

rgds
Roberto

Roberto, thanks for your welcome advice which I will act upon. ATB from
Scotland.

 

[sandy58]

Seeing that the disks are not recognised at boot time, your
question has nothing to do with Windows. I recommend that
you repost it in a hardware newsgroup.

you repost it in a hardware newsgroup.

Have that covered, Pegasus but thanks for the suggestion anyway.

 

[Jonny]

My apologies if this NG is the wrong choice.
I have a recurring problem with my hard drives (2)
not being recognised in bootup. Mostly both but sometimes just C:
Up till this moment my "cure" has been to pull the IDE ribbons &
re-plug them,
and generally check all/any connections I can see. Both hdd's are
partitioned (50%).
Main drive (250GB) c: & e:. 2nd drive (200gb) d: & f:
I recently (three months ago) attached a 300gb external drive (USB).
The external drive is working fine when required. This "recognition"
problem started in
this three month period (coincidence?). My PC is home-built. P4 3.2gh,
2 gb memory,
All fans & heatsinks cleaned (blown out) regularly. Temps fine. (My PC
& I live in Scotland,
a country NOT known for tropical climates The only ABNORMAL
temperature increase is MINE!
Any suggestions gratefully accepted & will be followed-up on.
Any further info supplied on demand.TIA
sandy58

Hardwarewise, could be the ide ribbon cables. Get the 80 wire version
replacements. Also could be +12V not enough on the power supply leg at
spinup time. Or, possibly, +5V leg, affecting the I/O of each hard drive at
boot time. Might be borderline, gray area of these amperage requirements
for these voltages. Not cut and dry not enough or enough. Walking a line
between these conditions at boot time. Or, you may have too many internal
peripherals on one side of the power supply, resulting in too much on one
side being drawn. The power supply usually has at least 2 physical lines of
each.