Failure to boot second hard drive

[Guest]

Apologies if I'm repeating myself - I felt sure I'd submitted this but can't
locate it today.
When my PC boots up the second hard drive has started failing to appear.
I've only been able to access it on two occasions this week. The BIOS says,
"Primary slave: None".
I've bought a new power supply and I've put all three boot location options
to the hard disc but nothing helps. It's been happening occasionally for some
time but now almost always.

Any help much appreciated.

 

[Rich Barry]

Mary, by all three boot locations do you mean Primary Master, Slave and
Cable Select? Try a different Ribbon cable.

 

[Guest]

Thanks, Rich.

No, I meant where you can specify that the computer seeks for the Boot file
in 3 places, e.g. hard disc, CD, and floppy disc. I specified hard disc for
each one. I imagined it would give 3 chances instead of 1 !

But could the problem be even before booting up?

With appreciation.

 

[da_test]

Thanks, Rich.

No, I meant where you can specify that the computer seeks for the Boot file
in 3 places, e.g. hard disc, CD, and floppy disc. I specified hard disc for
each one. I imagined it would give 3 chances instead of 1 !

But could the problem be even before booting up?

It could be. While the system is posting there is usually
a summary of the IDE devices found, right before XP
starts.
Try using the pause key to see if you can freeze
the display to give you time to read it.

If that's not possible, enter the BIOS and look for
it in there.

Dave

 

[Rich Barry]

Mary, if the drive has been working it could be going bad and check
the White four wire Power Connector and Ribbon Cable. Make sure that they
are fully seated and secure.

 

[Guest]

Rich and Dave,

Thanks to both of you. When the Boot has not picked up the drive the BIOS
states: 'Primary Slave: None'.

I'll have to ask a friend round to check the cable. Is there anything else
to ask him to check?

How do you know if a drive's 'going bad'?

 

[Rich Barry]

Mary, you can swap the white power connectors to drive and cdrom drive.
They are the same. You can also swap the
ribbon cable temporarily. If after doing this and the hard drive still
does not show up in the Bios chances are the drive is
kaput. Try the drive as Primary Master temporarily to see if the Bios
recognizes it. Hard Drives can act weird. Mine just failed but I was able to
swap white power connectors and that seemed to keep it going for awhile
until it got the click of death.

 

[Guest]

Rich,

Many thanks indeed for all your help. My friend is coming round to try out
what you suggest.

All best wishes,

Mary.