It seems that there is some setting that I need to do in order to have it be "seen" by XP Pro, but I don't know what it is. This 2nd HDD is one that I just removed as my primary, with a new one, so this one has data on it and so I really want to get it back, and then if it is bad, then I'll just throw it away, but I feel that it is still good and that the data is still there.

Any common, known reason why it would not see the 2nd HDD folks out there?

Thank you!!!

Did you change the jumpers on the HD?

There might be a possibilty of interchanging the connectors as well. Please check the connection of your Datacable also.

Yeah, the cable is connected properly and plugged in the correct place/way. What do you mean by the interchanging please? Thank you so much for your help!!!

I think he means that you have them in the correct order from the motherboard to the secondary drive then to the primary drive

Thanks for the explanation. Its almost a year now I'm off touch with the hardware issues.

Do you see the hard drive in your BIOS?

In windows go to control panel, administrative tools, computer management. on the left hand side go to storage, then disk management. Does your machine see it there?

i have bought an xp pro and put in my slave drive off my windows ME into it. 80GB IDE. i too have the same problem and it dose not show up on computer management storage. plus an DVD/WR

Windows doesn't need to be told by anything other than the BIOS that there is another HDD.

What does the BIOS report on boot up?

how do i get to bios boot up

Switch on and watch your screen at the very first stages of boot up. It'll tell you what to press to enter the BIOS and CMOS settings screen. It could be ESC, F1, DEL, F10.

Then you browse around to see what the BIOS has recognised. Then report.

bios dose not see the new hard drive. tryed all jumper settings and swaped ide ribbin round but to no avail. even arcoris true image dose not see it.

To Jukebox: Then you have a hardware problem. Double check this by seeing whether or not the HDD is recognised as a slave in another PC. If it is, then your disk controller may be shot.

switched ribbins. used ribbin lead and master fron windowsMe (did not change jumpers). power on bios did not find it BUT!! it worked fine. put spare dvd/wr in middle (changed jumper to slave) powered on, bios found it and works fine. don't know how or why but i'm happy

That happens too. When you wiggle connectors (e.g. when changing cables), better contact can be made etc.

Well done.

Windows doesn't need to be told by anything other than the BIOS that there is another HDD.

What does the BIOS report on boot up?

This is just trouble shooting. windows has its own "bios" that will detect hardware (sometimes) that the bios does not see. However, most machines if you can not see it in your bios then you can not see it in your O/S.

If you have no idea what the bios even reports then you may need to do a little reading

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BIOS

This is just trouble shooting. windows has its own "bios" that will detect hardware (sometimes) that the bios does not see. However, most machines if you can not see it in your bios then you can not see it in your O/S.

If you have no idea what the bios even reports then you may need to do a little reading

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BIOS

This thread is dealing with the HDD - which the BIOS reports and hands over to Windows.

It looks to me in this case that there is either an IDE setting adrift (perhaps jumper on the motherboard - although I've not found one in this regard on motherboards I've dealt with ) or the IDE controller is faulty.

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