Harddisk invisible with one XP setup, visible with a second. How to make generally visible?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Laogui32
  • Start date Start date
L

Laogui32

I have three identical Western digital 80gb drives.
All are configured as 1 or 2 NTFS partitions.
One I will call DATA, another XP-OLD, and the 3rd XP-NEW

I used to run XP-OLD and DATA as Primary and Secondary Masters
Then XP-OLD (XP 2002, SP2) started to exhibit increasingly bizarre operating
behaviour, not attributable to virus, but also not fixable
So I built a new XP on XP-NEW. All drives are in removable caddies so I can
swap them quickly.
BIOS settings are fine, Master/Slave jumpers are correct.

XP-OLD and DATA work together fine
XP-NEW and DATA - cannot see DATA, DiskManager cannot see DATA, Control
Panel Drivers sees two hard-disks
XP-NEW and XP-OLD work fine together in any combination.

How can I make XP-NEW see DATA? What are the possible causes?

Thank you for reading and thinking about my problem
 
Cable is not issue, because its the same cable connected when I swap disks,
and in fact since I'm not swapping DATA disk, cable should not be of
concern - thanks.
 
That sounds like it may be fruitful - my suspicions lean in that kind of
direction.
 
Does the BIOS detect it correctly? Is there a CD drive attached and if so, is
it set correctly?
 
Laogui32 said:
I have three identical Western digital 80gb drives.
All are configured as 1 or 2 NTFS partitions.
One I will call DATA, another XP-OLD, and the 3rd XP-NEW

I used to run XP-OLD and DATA as Primary and Secondary Masters
Then XP-OLD (XP 2002, SP2) started to exhibit increasingly bizarre
operating behaviour, not attributable to virus, but also not fixable
So I built a new XP on XP-NEW. All drives are in removable caddies
so I can swap them quickly.
BIOS settings are fine, Master/Slave jumpers are correct.

XP-OLD and DATA work together fine
XP-NEW and DATA - cannot see DATA, DiskManager cannot see DATA,
Control Panel Drivers sees two hard-disks
XP-NEW and XP-OLD work fine together in any combination.

How can I make XP-NEW see DATA? What are the possible causes?

Thank you for reading and thinking about my problem
Click to expand...

It sounds like at some point a drive overlay program may have been
installed. When initially installing the two original drives did you use the
software provided by Western Digital to partition the drives?
 
Maybe Solved...
I've rejigged everything, and now in DiskManager I can see a Disk1, which
shows up as 'Foreign Disk' with no partitions
So I right clicked and tried 'Import Foreign Disk' and voila!
 
Thanks - yes all CDs DVDs etc OK, BIOS ok...
See my other reply here - XP finally found a 'foreign disk as disk 1, and
provided an 'import foreign disk option, which revealed the two NTFS
partitions
 
Laogui32 said:
Maybe Solved...
I've rejigged everything, and now in DiskManager I can see a Disk1,
which shows up as 'Foreign Disk' with no partitions
So I right clicked and tried 'Import Foreign Disk' and voila!
Click to expand...

Is the drive showing as dynamic? It sounds like it was converted to dynamic
at some point.
 
Back
Top