Slave HDD disk drive not recognized XP OS

[MDCDAD]

on boot my computer went into a brain freeze and no longer recognized a (2) year operating slave HDD. I removed the slave HDD and replaced it with another with the resulting same problem. In setup neither the original slave drive nor the replacement slave drive are recognized. Setup does recognize the primary HDD. and the rest of the system seems to be operating fine. The drive is not recognize by Windows XP either. Any ideas?

Marc

 

[Mu33rto]

Make sure the pin on the primary hdd is set to master and not cable select. For the slave make sure its on slave. Connect both on the same IDE channel. Could be that the IDE cable is torn and not able to read it properly. If the bios does not read it change it to the secound IDE channel with a different IDE cable.See if that helps

 

[Paperdoc]

mu33rto's reply assumes OP is correct in using the term "Slave". That may be true, but I've seen too many people who don't understand the term. OP, is this a failure of the second drive on one IDE port and cable? In such systems, the device on the END of the ribbon cable ought to be the one set to Master, and the device in the middle should be the Slave. If that really is what you have, then mu33rto is quite right. Since two drives both seem not to work, it suggests either a faulty ribbon cable or a faulty IDE port on the mobo.

On the other hand, if what you call the "Slave" is just a second HDD in your machine that does not have the OS installed on it to boot from, it is not a Slave. It is just a non-boot drive. In fact, unless you are really dealing with IDE drives, do NOT start moving jumpers on the pins. Jumpers on SATA devices are used for entirely different purposes - there is no Master or Slave for SATA - and changing SATA jumpers can cause you lots of trouble.

So, clarify for me: are you dealing with IDE drives, or not?

 

[MDCDAD]

mu33rto's reply assumes OP is correct in using the term "Slave". That may be true, but I've seen too many people who don't understand the term. OP, is this a failure of the second drive on one IDE port and cable? In such systems, the device on the END of the ribbon cable ought to be the one set to Master, and the device in the middle should be the Slave. If that really is what you have, then mu33rto is quite right. Since two drives both seem not to work, it suggests either a faulty ribbon cable or a faulty IDE port on the mobo.

On the other hand, if what you call the "Slave" is just a second HDD in your machine that does not have the OS installed on it to boot from, it is not a Slave. It is just a non-boot drive. In fact, unless you are really dealing with IDE drives, do NOT start moving jumpers on the pins. Jumpers on SATA devices are used for entirely different purposes - there is no Master or Slave for SATA - and changing SATA jumpers can cause you lots of trouble.

So, clarify for me: are you dealing with IDE drives, or not?

Problem solved, these are IDE drives and it is a non-boot 2nd HDD. For what ever reason the power plug no longer liked the 2nd HDD. I switched with the primary HDD plug and all are happily crunching data. Why.... have no idea.

thx Marc