Hard Drive Problem

[Guest]

Ok, I have two hard drives installed in my computer. I have a 25GB master
and a 30GB slave drive. When I installed the second disk drive, there were
no problems and it was all good. There was a Win98 partition on there, but I
reformatted it, such that all it contained were data files. This drive was
in my computer for about three months, then one day, it just wasn't there. I
looked in My Computer, not there, I looked in Disk Management, not there.
Now I know it's obviously still physically installed, I checked the cabling
and power supply, and checked to see if it was reading correctly in BIOS. It
was. BIOS showed that it was indeed a primary slave, and had correct
information on it. So I checked the Device Manager. Installed, no
conflicts. So this hard drive exists in BIOS and Device Manager, yet won't
show up in Disk Management or My Computer or CMD. What can I do to correct
this? I really need the data that is on that drive!

 

[Rich Barry]

If it has been working Ok for awhile I would try replacing the hard
drive ribbon cable. If they are on the Primary IDE
Channel try swapping to the Secondary IDE channel.

 

[Guest]

Would only one of the connectors be malfunctioning? Both hard drives are on
the same cable...

 

[S. Taylor]

The heat a computer is capable of generating can cause degradation of your
cables, over time.
but since the other drive is still functioning, it's more likely that the
drive is failing.
Just because bios can get it to identify itself, that doesn't mean the hdd
is problem free.

It's also possible that a virus, malware or some other pest is screwing with
your system.
Make sure your anti-virus software is update and use antispyware software,
such as Spybot Search & Destroy and Ad-Aware SE.
You also check the HDD manufacturer's website for a hdd diagnostic tool to
test for any errors with the drive.

 

[Jerry]

Not necessarily true, I have had just one of the connectors go bad on an ide
cable.

 

[S. Taylor]

That was my point, that it's possible for an ide cable to go bad, but it's
not a common occurance.
Since only one of the drives on a cable is acting up. he should troubleshoot
other possibilities.

 

[Guest]

Ok, so I have more questions. Someone suggested swapping IDE channels, is
that effective? Or could I perhaps put HDD2 with the CD-ROM drive? I have an
empty slot on that cable. My questions is that, if it shows up in BIOS,
reading perfectly and showing the right capacity, why doesn't that same
information show up in device manager? The drive shows up, but I can't get
any information on it, and when I try to populate the information it shows
all 0's. Could the jumper settings be incorrect?

 

[S. Taylor]

You can put an HDD and a cd/dvd drive on the same ide cable, but
many (if not most) experienced users don't like to do it.
On older systems, the optical drive can negatively effect the hdd's
transfere speed,
Even though that doesn't happen in newer systems (i believe), many optical
drivers are
still touchy about what thier connected with and what they are set as.

takke my system as an example:
I had (until recently) a creative dvd-rom and a creative cd-rw drive.
Neither drive liked to be paired with my hdd, both would only be detected
if set as the Master Device
When paired together, the dvd-rom HAD to be Master and the cd-rw as slave
in order for both to be detected.
And neither would be detected if set to Cable Select.

Last Saturday I purchased a new Maxtor DVD +/- RW DL Drive
and no choice to set it as Master and the dvd-rom as Slave.

As a general rule, you can try putting your cd-rom and hdd on IDE0, but
unless your devices are
designed for that setup, i wouldn't expect much success.

You can also use a boot floppy to boot into dos and try to access the hdd
thru a pure dos shell.
I still suggest you check the manufacturer's website for a diagnostic tool.
And as a last resort you try to repartition and reformat it, but, of course
you'll lose all data, down that route.

Have you tried using chkdsk /R yet ?

 

[Guest]

I've tried using that, problem is I can't access it in CMD. Drive D doesn't
show up, and D was the second HDD. Now, the CD-ROM still has E:, so there's
nothing else taking D:, but it won't let me access it in CMD or from Run.

 

[S. Taylor]

I've tried using that, problem is I can't access it in CMD.

Have you tried accessing it while booted into dos? (without windows running)
You said your bios is recognizing it, but does the bios seem to take longer
to post
whiile detecting it?

Drive D doesn't show up, and D was the second HDD.

You have 2 physical drives, right? How many partitions on each drive?

Now, the CD-ROM still has E:, so there's
nothing else taking D:, but it won't let me access it in CMD or from Run.

Have you checked the manufacturer's website for diagnostic tools?
What does the Computer Management applet have to say about the drive?
Does the drives Properties window indicate the drive has been disabled?
Does the System Information Tool list any Problem Devices on the Components
tree?

 

[Guest]

No, not yet. But BIOS is reading it just as fast as it is the primary.

 

[S. Taylor]

You really need to try the rest of my suggestions, they only take a few
minutes

Start by making a dos boot diskette and boot into dos,
to see if you can access the drive from a pure dos shell.

 

[Guest]

Ok, so I took your advice. Perhaps I went about it the wrong way, but when I
made the XP startup disk using the tool from Msoft (all 6 of em!), it failed.
Some .dll was missing. I can't seem to find where I can make one elsewhere.
Did I do it wrong, or is there somewhere I can go within XP to make a boot
disk to just boot into DOS, not setup for a new install?

 

[Guest]

Oh and another thing, the old setup was C: and D: as both hard drives, and E:
as CD-RW. Now the E: drive doesn't exist and the D: drive is CD-RW. Could
that be part of it?

 

[S. Taylor]

No, windows is assigning the optical drive the 1st available drive letter is
all.
Once you get xp to recognize the hdd the optical drive will either become E:
or the hdd will become E:

 

[S. Taylor]

In windows xp, place a floppy diskette in the drive
then open My Computer and right click on that drives icon
and select Format.
In the Format options window, place a check in the "Create an MS-DOS startup
disk"
and click start.
That will make a basic bootable floppy with no cd/dvd rom support.

Use the floppy to boot up.
Without cd/dvd drive support, you should be able to access 3 drives,
A, C & D
Try other letters in case the problem drive is being assigned a different
letter.

You can also try switching the hdd's to see if Jerry's suggestion about 1
connector being bad.
I also remember reading on MS' support site (somewhere) that a failing
optical drive may
cause problems that can lead you to blame an hdd, so try booting with the cd
drive disconnected.

Also make sure that the hdd isn't disabled in the default profile
( in Device Manage, double click on the hdd's entry and check that the
bottom most entry
says Enabled)

Check the hdd manufacturer's website for any diagnostic tools.

Get Microsoft's Tweak UI Power Toy
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx
and use it to see if any drives or drive letters have been disabled.

If all this fails, that it could well be that the hdd has had a meltdown and
you have
3 choices.
1) Throw it away and say goodbye to you data
2) Take it to a professional and pay them to recover all the data they can
3) Browse this Newsgroup sites like www.downloads.com and
www.brothersoft.com
for data recovery software recommendation.

G'luck

 

[S. Taylor]

In windows xp, place a floppy diskette in the drive
then open My Computer and right click on that drives icon
and select Format.
In the Format options window, place a check in the "Create an MS-DOS
startup disk"
and click start.
That will make a basic bootable floppy with no cd/dvd rom support.

Use the floppy to boot up.
Without cd/dvd drive support, you should be able to access 3 drives,
A, C & D
Try other letters in case the problem drive is being assigned a different
letter.

You can also try switching the hdd's to see if Jerry's suggestion about 1
connector being bad.
I also remember reading on MS' support site (somewhere) that a failing
optical drive may
cause problems that can lead you to blame an hdd, so try booting with the
cd drive disconnected.

Also make sure that the hdd isn't disabled in the default profile
( in Device Manage, double click on the hdd's entry and check that the
bottom most entry
says Enabled)

Check the hdd manufacturer's website for any diagnostic tools.

Get Microsoft's Tweak UI Power Toy
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx
and use it to see if any drives or drive letters have been disabled.

If all this fails, that it could well be that the hdd has had a meltdown
and you have
3 choices.
1) Throw it away and say goodbye to you data
2) Take it to a professional and pay them to recover all the data they can
3) Browse this Newsgroup sites like www.downloads.com and
www.brothersoft.com
for data recovery software recommendation.

G'luck

Forgot one thing run the Sytem Information Tool
Start | Accessories | System Tools | System Information icon

In the tool, select Components | Storage | Drives
Is the hdd listed correctly?
Is there anything listed under Components | Problem Devices ?

 

[Guest]

Ok, I've made the boot floppy but I haven't used it yet. I tried your other
suggestion about the SysInfo. It doesn't show up in the Drives submenu, but
it does show up in the Disks submenu. As one of the entries, it says, "Media
Loaded - No." But it showed up all the information about the drive, and it
was all correct. What does that mean? On a side note, my optical drive was
failing miserably. I had to replace it two days ago.

 

[S. Taylor]

It's normal for a drives to appear in both.
The Drives subtree lists, i believe, the info for the individual partitions,
while the Disks subtree lists info on the physical hardware.

Is there anything listed in the Problem Devices view?

and try booting without any optical drives, see it that has any effect, to
rule out the
ms article.

 

[Guest]

Right, but only the C: drive appears in both. The BSE hard drive (the
problem drive) only appears in the Disks subtree, not the Drives one.
There's not anything listed in the Problem Devices tab, so nothing there.
I've tried booting it without the CD-ROM, but like I said, my old drive was
failing but I have a new, perfectly working one in there. And I even tried
swapping cables and connectors. No dice. It's showing in the BIOS boot as a
Primary Slave, but is not actually loading. I even tried switching the boot
order of the HDD's in the BIOS, but still, no dice. I'm stuck.

Oh and btw, the floppy let me boot into DOS, but from there I couldn't
access any drive except the A: drive.