Dimension 8400: 2 SATA DVD Drives/2nd SATA hard drive recognized by Bios but not otherwise (Windows XP)

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gak1952

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Jul 11, 2011
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Hi,
I've installed two SATA DVD drives and a second SATA hard drive into my Dimension 8400 (running on Windows XP Professional with 4GB memory). I've connected the two SATA drives to the IDE power cable by means of a Star Tech Molex 4 Pin to 2x 15 Pin SATA Power Cable.

These two SATA DVD drives and the second SATA hard drive are recognized in BIOS, but when I go into Windows XP Professional they are not recognized in 1) Control Panel/System/Hardware/Device Manager/ 2) Computer Management/Disk Management

The two SATA drives are a:

1) LG Internal Super Multi Drive SATA Model - GH24NSB0B
2) Asus BRN ASUSS DRW 24B1ST X Multi Drive

I have the following SATA devices connected to my four SATA connectors

SATA connector 0 - 2TB SATA hard drive (top hard drive slot) - this is my C Drive. It is recognized and runs
SATA connector 1 - 2TB SATA hard drive (bottom hard drive slot)
SATA connector 2 – Asus BRN ASUSS DRW 24B1ST i X Multi Drive (bottom CD/DVD slot)
SATA connector 3 – HL – DT - STDVDRAM - GH24NSB0B (top CD/DVD slot)
PATA 5 and 6 are turned off

My bios settings are: RAID / AHCI (I’ve tried running my system with RAID / ATA, but it makes not difference).

I've tried 1) switching SATA cables and connectors e.g. the second hard drive into SATA connector 2 and the ASUS DVD drive into SATA connector 2) running the system with only the second hard drive in SATA connector 1 and the two DVD drives disconnected with SATA connectors 2 and 3 in the off position 3) running the two DVD drives in SATA connectors 2 and 3 without the second hard drive and SATA 1 in the off position.

In all these cases the connected devises are recognized in BIOS but not in Computer Management/Disk Management or Control Panel/System/Hardware/Device Manager

I'd be grateful for any advice anyone could give for getting my system/XP to recognize these two SATA DVD drives and the second SATA hard drive.

I've searched Dell driver downloads for SATA drivers, but so far as I can tell, I'm not missing anything - though I could be wrong.

My sincere thanks in advance for any advice proferred
 
Solution
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Maybe you're not looking in the right place. Look closely again in Disk Management. On the right are TWO panes, and each of them SCROLLS to show you all they have. The way mine is laid out, I can see my two HDD's in the Lower Right pane, but I have to scroll to see my optical drives below that.

The Upper Right pane shows you all the storage devices Windows already understands. But concentrate on the LOWER RIGHT pane. It should show you ALL the storage devices that the BIOS can recognize, even if Windows can't figure them out yet. This is where you can Right-click on the Unallocated Space of a new empty HDD to Create a New Simple Volume. Here you can examine the info on any Partitions on HDD's. If a Partition does NOT have an alphabet...
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gak1952

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To some extent - ASUS DVD yes. Western Digital hard drive - from what I can tell from the WD website and its download page for my particular hard drive, there don't seem to be any drivers for my hard drive other than drivers for Acronis and running WD backup programs which I don't intend to use. LG DVD no.

However, this should make no difference especially for the DVD drives. After Windows XP has booted up, Windows should display the 'New Hardware Found' window and search for the DVD drivers or prompt me to insert a disk containing the drivers.

This doesn't happen because, so far as I can tell, Windows XP is unable to recognize the WD hard drive and the two DVD drives even though they are recognized in BIOS. Drivers would only become an issue once the hard drive and DVD drives were recognized as hardware by Windows XP. This is my basic problem

Let me know what you think.

Thank you for your suggestion. I very much appreciate it.
 
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Paperdoc

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Oct 19, 2006
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Maybe you're not looking in the right place. Look closely again in Disk Management. On the right are TWO panes, and each of them SCROLLS to show you all they have. The way mine is laid out, I can see my two HDD's in the Lower Right pane, but I have to scroll to see my optical drives below that.

The Upper Right pane shows you all the storage devices Windows already understands. But concentrate on the LOWER RIGHT pane. It should show you ALL the storage devices that the BIOS can recognize, even if Windows can't figure them out yet. This is where you can Right-click on the Unallocated Space of a new empty HDD to Create a New Simple Volume. Here you can examine the info on any Partitions on HDD's. If a Partition does NOT have an alphabet letter name (or if an optical unit does not have a letter name at its left end), you can Right-Click on that and assign a letter name.

If you make any changes in this area of Disk Management, it's a good idea to finish by exiting out of Disk Management and rebooting so Windows can update its Registry files.
 
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