2nd hardrive not being detected properly

Vincent

ok i have a 4gb western digital drive and for some reason win2k win98 only regonises it once every now and then, ie today when i first booted up my computer today the drive showed up in win2k but then i restarted the comp it wasn't, it's an on going cycle. The hd is on the same ide cable as my 20gig maxtor drive and i've no problems with that. I have the 4gig drive set to slave. This is extremely annoying as i went to install mandraxe 8 on it today the linux installer detected it this time and i went ahead and installed it, but when i restarted my comp it wouldnt' regonise the drive and instead of a getting lilo i get a bunch of 0's and 1's. Anyone know whats wrong with it? it works sometimes and i dont think it's the ide cable

leeroybrown

Well if theres no problems with the naster drive, its extremel unlikely that is is the IDE cable.

Have you tried reinstalling the drive and checking all the connections?

and for some reason win2k win98 only regonises it once every now and then

Which OS is it (win2k or Win98)?

If you boot directly into DOS does the drive show up every time?



It's a really strange problem.

seamus

I'd try reseating the cables, just make sure evrything is all tight (which I'm sure you've already done), if that doesn't work try switching around your drives If you've only got one CD drive, try putting the second HD on the secondary IDE, which may work. If you've got two CD drives, try mixing and matching. It's not exactly orthodox, and probably not the best idea, but hey, if it works!:)

tribble

check the bios and set all of the following (if present)

boot speed - change down from turbo to slow/normal - this allows more time for detection of old/slow drives

drive parameters - change from auto to manual/user and input the spec (printed on drive or found on website) - forces the bios to wait until drive is found at boot

also - look at the main hd to see if there is a 'force device 2 present' jumper (ibm hd's have one) set this


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Saruman

firstly set the hard disk pre-delay in bios to 6 -10 seconds, also check jumper settings, some hard dirves have a jumper for master/slave (cable select function) and some have one for master (single drive as it a slave will not work right!) and others have one with Master (single) and Master (with slave attached)

Bosco

Heya Saruman,

If you managed to solve the problem, well and good. If not I have a question or two...

Those times that the drive isn't detected....does the drive hum? (or make whatever noises that it usually makes when it's functioning normally)

When you say that the drive sometimes doesn't work normally after rebooting, do you mean soft rebooting or powering off?

Bosco

Vincent

ya thnks it's being detected now, i set the hardrive pre-day to 5seconds or so. It's being detected in the bios and windows, it's been fixed for about a week, but i still had linux partitions and it wasnt' been detected by windows so i thought it was still b0rked