Hard drives not recognized bios

[oconp88]

I have been having significant performance issues with my desktop for a couple of weeks, including hangups and VM errors. I was prepared to buy more RAM, until the computer recently froze and when I tried to do a hard reboot, neither HDD was recognized by the BIOS. Obviously no Windows XP loading either. My two optical drives are recognized.

I am assuming this is a hardware issue, either a bad master drive (woudl that keep me from seeing the slave "behind" it?) or a controller issue on the mobo.

The computer is an HP which I bought in 2004, so not new, but no relic.

Any suggestions on what to do first/next?

 

[jfreggie]

Could also be a power issue. Older PSU could be dying and not able to provide enough power to the harddrives. Could you please provide your full system specs, including the psu brand and wattage? Also, do you have a spare PSU that you could try out?

 

[oconp88]

Actually the PSU is relatively new, maybe a year old. I got a new case, because I upgraded GPU and wanted ot make sure I had enough power.

 

[jfreggie]

Can you please list your system specs then. Not all PSUs are created equal, and its possible that with a GPU upgrade it may not be able to handle the power requirements.
Also, have you tried the HDDs in another computer? And I guess I should assume they are PATA, since you are using the master/slave comment. Double check the cables are properly seated into the motherboard and the drives themselves, also, have you tried using a different cable(maybe the cable is bad), or plugging the cable into the other PATA port on the motherboard (maybe the port is bad)?