Undeteced ide hd in os xp? but bios see it > wtf

Please separate your previous post into legible sentences and paragraphs before reposting it.
Once it is readable, maybe we can help you with your issues.

Also, when you repost that blob, post your full system specs.
It is quite a bit easier to locate an issue when we know what we are working with.

"both ide drives a set to slaves the ide drives are on seperate cables (80) pin ie primary,secondary ide molexes nothing else is on ithere cabel"

This is your problem.

The IDE system allows up to two devices per port/cable, and many systems (like yours) have two IDE ports or channels. On each port, because there MAY be either one or two devices sharing it, it is essential that each device be uniquely identified. Thus each device has a jumper system to identify it as either a Master or a Slave. This identification is related solely to this particular IDE port - it has NOTHING to do with what other deices you have connected to other ports in your system.

Now for each IDE port the MUST be a Master device, and it really should be connected to the END connector of the ribbon cable. IF you connect a second device to the other (middle) connector on this same cable / port, it must be the Slave. Some IDE hard drives have only Master or Slave to choose from in setting the jumpers. Others have a two sub-choices for Master: either Master with Slave present, or Master with no Slave. The third way to do this is called "Cable Select" or "CS". In this system BOTH devices are set to "CS" and the system automatically sets the one on the END as Master, and the one on the middle as Slave. So in this system if you have only one drive, it MUST be on the end connector to serve as the mandatory Master.

In OP's write-up he says both IDE drives are set to Slave and are on different IDE channels with NO other devices attached to those channels. In other words, BOTH IDE channels have no Master! Simply change the jumpers on each IDE drive to Master. Then everything should work just fine.

thank you very very much for the informative non sarcastic reply. "it was not a blob when i input it in the othere box but formated to that window size".
any ways iv lernt something i havnt run into befor ,
cs master is the end of the cabale and there always has to be a master defined if cs is not used on the ide devices.also if cs is used there must be a drive on the end of the cable.

in hind sight i set them both to slaves not knowing how the sata drive (my host os drive) would boot > ha ha boot menu < didnt know untill having multiple drives that where bootable hooked up corectly.


having now run diagnostics on the failing drive is there any way to be shur that a new pcb would fix the problem ?

http://www.onepcbsolution.com/maxtor-diamondmax-plus-9-...

35$ isnt alot to waste but why not dump into a new drive if i can find out that the internals of the drive are bad for shur with out spending any money?
only reason i consider getting a new pcb for the drive is that it has booted to windows but then bod's befor reaching user logon

Just so you and others know, "Master" and "Slave" are essential for IDE drives and ports, and mean nothing on SATA ports. For the computer as a whole, the BOOT DRIVE is NOT automatically the "Master" on any system. In many older systems the BIOS assumed by default that the Master device on the Primary IDE port (IDE0) would be the boot device. In fact, longer ago, there was no choice. And that is the origin of the misunderstanding. In all recent systems there is a complete separation. Within the BIOS Setup screens there is always a place to set the Boot Sequence or Boot Priority, and that is what determines the boot device(s). So you set Master and Slave settings on the IDE port(s) according to the needs of those ports, and select the Boot Device completely independently.

You did not mention earlier that you have a hard drive failure happening. You say you have run diagnostics on the drive. I assume those tests said your hard drive has problems, but you have not told us what those are. A few things may be just odd information written to the drive, and might be "fixable". If the problems involve actual damage to the internal parts (bad Sectors, head trouble, various things) you can NOT fix those with a controller board replacement. There are some things that can be fixed, however, with an EXACT replacement board.

What exactly do the diagnostic tests you ran say? We can offer better advice with that information. Also tell us, why did you think the drive is failing so that you went to the diagnostic testing process?