My system has been running almost 10yrs with the 3 hard drives installed without issues, but recently after updating my sound card i had errors popping up, i could not fix the errors as i could not boot to the OS because of the update error. The only thing i has to do was reformat my main HD as the other 2 drives are storage. I got windows all installed and patched to service pack 3 (windows xp pro) and booted up, it recognizes my main drive and one other storage drive but not the second storage drive. I went into bios setup and it is actually recognized by the bios, it even lets me try to boot from it even though i have no OS on it. What's going on here, what am i missing or what am i doing wrong.
3 Hard drives
- Thread starter draytalon
- Start date
Solution
Check carefully in Disk Management. If your BIOS can recognize the third HDD, it certainly should show up in Disk Management.
In Disk Management, concentrate on the LOWER RIGHT pane, which shows all legit hardware drives, even if Windows can't recognize them yet. Then recognize that this pane (and the one above it) SCROLLS so you can see all it contents. You should be able to see boxes representing all three of your HDD's plus ones for your optical drive units. The third HDD might be the LAST in the list, depending on the history of its installation. If it it there but shows no letter name (like H
on its Partition, you can RIGHT-click on it and assign a letter that is not currently in use. It would usually be best to assign letter...
In Disk Management, concentrate on the LOWER RIGHT pane, which shows all legit hardware drives, even if Windows can't recognize them yet. Then recognize that this pane (and the one above it) SCROLLS so you can see all it contents. You should be able to see boxes representing all three of your HDD's plus ones for your optical drive units. The third HDD might be the LAST in the list, depending on the history of its installation. If it it there but shows no letter name (like H
on its Partition, you can RIGHT-click on it and assign a letter that is not currently in use. It would usually be best to assign letter...
Ok, when i right click 'My Computer' i goto 'Manage' and it opens the 'Computer Management' console. I cannot see anything about disk utilities in there. I can see 'Disk Management' and i can see my C Drive (main), D Drive (storage) and both my cd/dvd drives, nothing else there. Is disk utilities somewhere else on windows xp pro.
Not sure that could actually be the problem, as i said, i have been running like this for nearly 10yrs without a problem, even after installing Vista (which i hated), i removed that OS and re-installed XP, and it recognized it when i did that, but this time it does not.
Check carefully in Disk Management. If your BIOS can recognize the third HDD, it certainly should show up in Disk Management.
In Disk Management, concentrate on the LOWER RIGHT pane, which shows all legit hardware drives, even if Windows can't recognize them yet. Then recognize that this pane (and the one above it) SCROLLS so you can see all it contents. You should be able to see boxes representing all three of your HDD's plus ones for your optical drive units. The third HDD might be the LAST in the list, depending on the history of its installation. If it it there but shows no letter name (like H on its Partition, you can RIGHT-click on it and assign a letter that is not currently in use. It would usually be best to assign letter names the same way they were before, in case your Registry is expecting to find certain items on certain drives.
One other thing to check is the way the SATA Port Modes are set. (I am assuming that the HDD's are SATA.) MANY BIOS's have you set the Mode for all SATA ports the same, but some allow separate port Mode settings. The thing we are dealing with here is that XP (but not Vista) does NOT have any "built-in" driver for SATA or AHCI devices, and there are two ways to handle that. One, which is quite suitable for a storage drive only, is to ensure that you do load into Win XP Pro when it's running the driver your mobo needs for SATA (or AHCI) devices, and then it can handle them. The other work-around built into most BIOS's is to go into the BIOS Setup screens and ensure that the SATA Port Mode for the port(s) in question is (are) set to IDE Emulation, and NOT to SATA, AHCI, or RAID. Setting to IDE Emulation mode has the BIOS intervene and make the actual SATA HDD behave just like an older IDE unit that XP fully understands and can use properly.
Another thing to check: which SATA port is used for that "missing" unit? Many mobos have about 4 SATA ports, and many have an additional one or two that are provided by a separate controller chip. In the latter case, you usually have to ensure that you load into Windows the device driver for that chip and its extra ports. Since you have two HDD's and two optical drives already operating properly, is the last HDD on one of these "extra" ports that needs a driver installed?
In Disk Management, concentrate on the LOWER RIGHT pane, which shows all legit hardware drives, even if Windows can't recognize them yet. Then recognize that this pane (and the one above it) SCROLLS so you can see all it contents. You should be able to see boxes representing all three of your HDD's plus ones for your optical drive units. The third HDD might be the LAST in the list, depending on the history of its installation. If it it there but shows no letter name (like H
on its Partition, you can RIGHT-click on it and assign a letter that is not currently in use. It would usually be best to assign letter names the same way they were before, in case your Registry is expecting to find certain items on certain drives.One other thing to check is the way the SATA Port Modes are set. (I am assuming that the HDD's are SATA.) MANY BIOS's have you set the Mode for all SATA ports the same, but some allow separate port Mode settings. The thing we are dealing with here is that XP (but not Vista) does NOT have any "built-in" driver for SATA or AHCI devices, and there are two ways to handle that. One, which is quite suitable for a storage drive only, is to ensure that you do load into Win XP Pro when it's running the driver your mobo needs for SATA (or AHCI) devices, and then it can handle them. The other work-around built into most BIOS's is to go into the BIOS Setup screens and ensure that the SATA Port Mode for the port(s) in question is (are) set to IDE Emulation, and NOT to SATA, AHCI, or RAID. Setting to IDE Emulation mode has the BIOS intervene and make the actual SATA HDD behave just like an older IDE unit that XP fully understands and can use properly.
Another thing to check: which SATA port is used for that "missing" unit? Many mobos have about 4 SATA ports, and many have an additional one or two that are provided by a separate controller chip. In the latter case, you usually have to ensure that you load into Windows the device driver for that chip and its extra ports. Since you have two HDD's and two optical drives already operating properly, is the last HDD on one of these "extra" ports that needs a driver installed?
All my drives are on SCSI cables, Disk Management does not see it, but bios does easily. This is what disk management sees.
Disk 0
basic
149.04gb
online
healthy (system)
Disk 1
basic
232.88gb
online
healthy (active)
CD-ROM 0
DVD-E
no media
CD-ROM 1
DVD
498mb
online
healthy (this is due to the fact that i have a disk in the drive at the moment)
There is nothing else in the DM, i rebooted this morning to bios again to check and it still shows all 3 of my HD's.
On a foot note, my 3rd drive is hooked via the SCSI cable to the 2nd drive so it shares the same MoBo connector.
Disk 0
basic
149.04gb
online
healthy (system)
Disk 1
basic
232.88gb
online
healthy (active)
CD-ROM 0
DVD-E
no media
CD-ROM 1
DVD
498mb
online
healthy (this is due to the fact that i have a disk in the drive at the moment)
There is nothing else in the DM, i rebooted this morning to bios again to check and it still shows all 3 of my HD's.
On a foot note, my 3rd drive is hooked via the SCSI cable to the 2nd drive so it shares the same MoBo connector.
Paperdoc :
Check carefully in Disk Management. If your BIOS can recognize the third HDD, it certainly should show up in Disk Management.
In Disk Management, concentrate on the LOWER RIGHT pane, which shows all legit hardware drives, even if Windows can't recognize them yet. Then recognize that this pane (and the one above it) SCROLLS so you can see all it contents. You should be able to see boxes representing all three of your HDD's plus ones for your optical drive units. The third HDD might be the LAST in the list, depending on the history of its installation. If it it there but shows no letter name (like H on its Partition, you can RIGHT-click on it and assign a letter that is not currently in use. It would usually be best to assign letter names the same way they were before, in case your Registry is expecting to find certain items on certain drives.
One other thing to check is the way the SATA Port Modes are set. (I am assuming that the HDD's are SATA.) MANY BIOS's have you set the Mode for all SATA ports the same, but some allow separate port Mode settings. The thing we are dealing with here is that XP (but not Vista) does NOT have any "built-in" driver for SATA or AHCI devices, and there are two ways to handle that. One, which is quite suitable for a storage drive only, is to ensure that you do load into Win XP Pro when it's running the driver your mobo needs for SATA (or AHCI) devices, and then it can handle them. The other work-around built into most BIOS's is to go into the BIOS Setup screens and ensure that the SATA Port Mode for the port(s) in question is (are) set to IDE Emulation, and NOT to SATA, AHCI, or RAID. Setting to IDE Emulation mode has the BIOS intervene and make the actual SATA HDD behave just like an older IDE unit that XP fully understands and can use properly.
Another thing to check: which SATA port is used for that "missing" unit? Many mobos have about 4 SATA ports, and many have an additional one or two that are provided by a separate controller chip. In the latter case, you usually have to ensure that you load into Windows the device driver for that chip and its extra ports. Since you have two HDD's and two optical drives already operating properly, is the last HDD on one of these "extra" ports that needs a driver installed?
In Disk Management, concentrate on the LOWER RIGHT pane, which shows all legit hardware drives, even if Windows can't recognize them yet. Then recognize that this pane (and the one above it) SCROLLS so you can see all it contents. You should be able to see boxes representing all three of your HDD's plus ones for your optical drive units. The third HDD might be the LAST in the list, depending on the history of its installation. If it it there but shows no letter name (like H
on its Partition, you can RIGHT-click on it and assign a letter that is not currently in use. It would usually be best to assign letter names the same way they were before, in case your Registry is expecting to find certain items on certain drives.One other thing to check is the way the SATA Port Modes are set. (I am assuming that the HDD's are SATA.) MANY BIOS's have you set the Mode for all SATA ports the same, but some allow separate port Mode settings. The thing we are dealing with here is that XP (but not Vista) does NOT have any "built-in" driver for SATA or AHCI devices, and there are two ways to handle that. One, which is quite suitable for a storage drive only, is to ensure that you do load into Win XP Pro when it's running the driver your mobo needs for SATA (or AHCI) devices, and then it can handle them. The other work-around built into most BIOS's is to go into the BIOS Setup screens and ensure that the SATA Port Mode for the port(s) in question is (are) set to IDE Emulation, and NOT to SATA, AHCI, or RAID. Setting to IDE Emulation mode has the BIOS intervene and make the actual SATA HDD behave just like an older IDE unit that XP fully understands and can use properly.
Another thing to check: which SATA port is used for that "missing" unit? Many mobos have about 4 SATA ports, and many have an additional one or two that are provided by a separate controller chip. In the latter case, you usually have to ensure that you load into Windows the device driver for that chip and its extra ports. Since you have two HDD's and two optical drives already operating properly, is the last HDD on one of these "extra" ports that needs a driver installed?
Ok here we go, i am such an idiot most of the time. When the PC boots up, i went to the Bios and yes all 3 HD's are seen, but with windows it would not recognize it, so what to do, i checked the hardware in the system properties and found that the SIS180 raid was missing from the driver file, i went ahead and installed that and it now sees the 3rd drive. With your idea paperdoc i managed to locate and install what i needed. Thanks to everyone for the help and especially you paperdoc as it set me on the right path.
Regards
Dray
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