PC not detecting hard drives on boot

[imported_decker]

So I'm home for college and I replaced my parents old Win ME comp with mine. My dad asked that I put back his computer so he could access his files, so I thought instead of using their old, slow winME machine I'd just add their HD to my comp as a slave. I removed my slave hd and was about to put in theirs when my dad threw a fit, so I put the HD's back in their original places.

Here is the problem: Their computer works fine. My computer does not. I have two WD hd's, I did not touch the jumper settings, I did remove the IDE cables and the power cables from both of my HD's. After putting back the slave HD and reconnecting all dislodged cables my computer does not detect anything when searching for IDE drives (primary master, primary slave, secondary master, secondary slave all come up blank on bootup).

I also did not touch the BIOS or anyother system settings. I am pretty sure I grounded myself and I was working on a hardwood floor.

comp specs: P4 1.8ghz, 640mb pc133 ram, 2 wd hd's, geforce4 ti4200, winxp home sp2.

I appreciate your help.

 

[mechBgon]

Welcome to the Forums What motherboard do you have?

 

[imported_decker]

I really couldn't tell you, I bought this comp for $400 at Fry's 4 years ago and everything it came with was generic/no-name brands.

 

[mechBgon]

Hmmm. Try this:

1) connect only your boot drive to the motherboard, and pull the jumper off of its Master/Slave/etc pins. Without a jumper, it is in Single Drive mode, unless it's very old. If in doubt, check its label.

2) now start the system and see if the drive is recognized or not.

3) try the same routine using the other hard drive.


If one drive is recognized but the other isn't, then that drive is probably dead. If neither drive is recognized, try connecting the cable to a different port on the motherboard. If both are recognized individually, then set them to Master and Slave respectively and try again, I guess

Part of the reason I asked about the motherboard is that some motherboards have extra ATA ports that are linked to an onboard RAID controller, rather than the motherboard's own "native" ATA controllers. If that were the case, the oddball plug(s) will probably be labelled "RAID" something-or-other on the mobo's surface, whereas the "normal" ATA plugs will probably be marked "IDE" or "ATA."

Good luck with the troubleshooting

 

[imported_decker]

Ok when I unplugged the slave drive and removed the jumper from the primary, on bootup it detected my cd-rw as secondary master and my secondary slave as my dvd drive.

edit: Could it be the IDE cable? Unfortunately I do not have a spare one to try it with...just a thought.

 

[mechBgon]

Interesting. Now how about this: take the cable that has your CDRW and your DVD drive, and put it on the motherboard plug that your hard drive's cable was on. If it stops detecting them, then maybe that ATA controller is dead. Then you could test further by putting the hard drives on the ATA plug that your optical drives have been using.

 

[imported_decker]

Ok I have one Excelstor and one WD (slave) hard drives.

After removing the IDE cables from the cd roms, and plugging one of the cables back into my primary hard drive (the excelstor), it shows up as my secondary slave.

 

[mechBgon]

Ok, now if you leave the cable plugged into the drive, but put the motherboard end of the cable onto the other receptacle on the motherboard, does it no longer get recognized? If so, then you might go into your motherboard's BIOS and try to get it to auto-detect the drive from within the BIOS, or set all the positions to AUTO if they are not that way already.

If moving the cable to the other receptacle on the motherboard results in no detection, and you can't get it to detect using the steps above either, then it sounds like it's time for a new motherboard pretty soon.

 

[imported_decker]

Ok I removed the IDE cable all together from the mobo, switched the one that was connected to the cd-roms to the now vacant position on the mobo and now it detects my primary HD as a primary slave. It also leaves the following message: Primary IDE Channel no 80 conductor cable installed. It has left that before with "secondary ide channel" I just forgot to mention it =(

However it is still not detecting my primary HD with no jumpers as the master HD.

 

[imported_decker]

Do you think it is just the IDE cable? What else should I do? Why won't it detect my HD as the master HD?

Again thanks for the help so far.

 

[mechBgon]

Were you able to confirm that both IDE ports on the motherboard do actually work? For ATA/66 or faster protocols, you need an 80-wire cable, which is pretty affordable if you need to buy one due to the cable being faulty/damaged.

 

[imported_decker]

It posted as the secondary slave on one port and primary slave on the other, so it does seem to work (and it definately worked prior to me removing the hard drive last night). I just don't see why it doesn't post as the primary master.

And I'm sure I am using 80wire cables. What does that message (Primary IDE Channel no 80 conductor cable installed.) mean?