Bios recognises HD, but XP doesn't - help?

[kayaksurfer]

I've finally added a 4th IDE drive to my system and found that XPHome will not recognise my Primary slave, no matter what drive it is.

Before: Primary single drive - DVD, Secondary master and slave were harddisks.

Now: Primary master=NewHarddisk, Primary slave=DVD. Secondary master and slave are harddisks.

I've tried switching Primary and Secondary around (by swapping cables on the motherboard) and the bios ALWAYS recognises all 4 drives, and XP ALWAYS doesn't detect the Primary slave. Just plugging into the Primary ide with either pair of drives produces the same results (Bios recognises, but XP only shows the primary master in device mangler and file exploder)

I'm tempted to think my MB is cooked on the primary slave, but then why does the bios recognise all drives and channels?

John

 

[microAmp]

For grins, try uninstalling the IDE channels in 'Device Manger'. Reboot and it'll reinstall them....

 

[mechBgon]

Go to Windows Disk Management and see if your drive is waiting for you to assign it a drive letter and format it. If so, right-click it and you should be on the way to your goal.

 

[kayaksurfer]

MechBgon - I've looked in Disk Mngmt (repeatedly) - right now the new drive is one I CAN see, so I've partitioned etc. - its one of my others I can't see, always whatever I put on Primary slave.

Motoamd - I'm going to try that right now!

 

[bozo1]

Made sure your cable isn't one for 'cable select' and if it is, jump both of the drives for that setting. Cable select drives have a wire cut between the 2 device connectors.

or

Try swapping the cable. If your primary slave is never recognized regardless of the device, I would suspect a cable problem first then a mobo problem.

 

[kayaksurfer]

And the winner is... MOTOAMD

uninstalling both ide channels and via busmaster controller (in device mngr) and coldbooting fixed everything.
Thanks. Very very much!

 

[microAmp]

That'll be $200.00 please.