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Hard drive not being detected

T

tuzz

Member
OK, I have a problem with a new hard drive I bought yesterday: BIOS detects it fine (size of HD, brand, etc) but when I get into Windows it doesn't show up at all! In fact, it won't let me 'switch' to that drive when I'm in DOS as well (when I type in d: it just says 'Invalid drive specification'). What I did was leave my current drive as it is (primary master) and switch the jumper on the new drive to slave, and plug it in as the primary slave drive. It doesn't work as secondary slave either, I've tried it. And it won't work if I play around with the BIOS HD settings (LBA, Normal or Large). I also let BIOS automatically detect the HD each time I start up, and BIOS detects it correctly but won't find it after the start-up sequence.
I've also tried putting the new HD as master and my old HD as slave but it won't work like that either, it just comes up with a 'insert system disk' error. And when I put in a system disk into the A: drive and start it up, when I type in c: it says 'invalid drive specification, which really shouldn't be happening because you don't need to load any drivers to use your HD.
One last thing I tried: I changed the CD-ROM so it was drive e: instead of d:, but that didn't work either, right now I have an a: drive, c: (my normal HD) and e: (CD-ROM), and no d: drive.

Oh, and I've also tried the new HD in the other computer I have and it has the same errors there. So I doubt it's the computer that I've got it in.

I've changed around hard drives heaps of times before without any problems! Have I missed out something somewhere? Or is it just a faulty drive???

And my specs (although I don't think my specs are that important with this problem):
233Mhz PII
64Mb RAM
2Gb HD (old one)
not sure about my mobo (can't be bothered checking)
Windows '98

My other computer:
333Mhz PII
64Mb RAM
6Gb HD
Gigabyte mobo
Windows '98
 
I don't want to partition it, so I haven't used fdisk.
But I did try to format it, I just got another 'invalid drive specification' error.
 
Use Fdisk and choose Yes to the option of leaving as one large drive and then choose your second drive while in Fdisk. Then allocate all the space on Drive 2 in Fdisk to one drive. THen reboot and Format the D drive.
 
I've heard of hard drives that need their own special BIOS in order for windows to recognize it. did your hard drive come with that? And yeah, you need to fdisk the thing
 
i dont' know about any special bios for the HD but i haven't fdisk it yet so I hope it'll work after that.
 
I tried the search for new hardware and that didn't work either

Thanks guys! The fdisk and format worked - I really appreciate the help. I'm now formatting the new partition (I've done the main one) and I'm about to install win98. Thanks again!
 
ok what kind of drive is this (maxtor, wd, ibm, what) in either case i dont think you could format it til u fdisk it, as there has to be a partition to format. The easiest way i have found is to use Maxblast a utility that comes with maxtor drives, works on any drive, it sees a drive even if u have a crappy Compaq bios that doesnt see it. you can dl it at maxtors site, put it on a flop and boot with it, and it will allow you to initialize and make it bootable (provided u have a win bootdisk as well).. if that dont work recheck jumpers. good luck
-neural
 
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