SATA Port 2 and any attached drive disappear once WinXP loads

[peterhow]

Hello,
Suddenly, Windows XP SP3 can't see any drive attached to SATA Port 2 on my ASUStek P5KPL-AM motherboard.

The missing drive is listed during initial BIOS boot sequence and can be seen perfectly if I load Linux via an external thumb-drive, so it doesn't seem to be a hardware problem.
It disappears once Windows loads and it isn't listed in Admin Tools.
I'd appreciate any suggestions please on how to persuade XP to find the missing port.

Just in case it's relevant, on reboot, Windows always says that a 'new printer' is attached, but can't ever seem to find the drivers for it. This is a mystery as no new printer has been attached and the existing printer works perfectly well. Just wondered if Windows might be confusing port with printer...?
Thank you in advance,
Peter

PS As XP is going to lose support it's probably time I upgraded both OS and contents of my old AT case, but perhaps I can please ask for suggestions on that once this current issue is out of the way ;o)

 

[Emerald]

what drives are attached via SATA?

 

[peterhow]

what drives are attached via SATA?

Hi Emerald and thank you for replying.
There are 4 SATA drives in the PC: 3 hard drives and a DVD read/write.
The boot drive attached to SATA 1 (Maxtor 6L) works perfectly so has been left untouched.
The other two hard drives are: ST3 160Gb and ST3 1TB.
I have tried changing the connections and swapping the cables to the drives at SATA 2,3,4 with no effect - whichever device is attached to SATA 2 disappears once Windows has loaded, so I have left the 3 hard drives connected to SATAs 1,3 and 4 - which all work fine - and have temporarily disconnected the DVDROM.

Peter

 

[Emerald]

what is the BIOS setting for the drives? IDE or ACHI?

last thought only connect the boot drive and CD drive to SATA 1 + 2, boot the computer, and change the frive letter on the CD-drive to Z

I hope it did see the CD-drive?

shut down computer, connect the other drives to SATA 3+4, and boot the computer.

do the drives all show up?

 

[peterhow]

what is the BIOS setting for the drives? IDE or ACHI?

last thought only connect the boot drive and CD drive to SATA 1 + 2, boot the computer, and change the frive letter on the CD-drive to Z

I hope it did see the CD-drive?

shut down computer, connect the other drives to SATA 3+4, and boot the computer.

do the drives all show up?

All the drives are IDE.

I'm sorry, I made a mistake earlier.
It's SATA 3 which can't be seen by Windows not SATA 2.

I disconnected drives 2 and 4, put just the boot drive on SATA 1 and the CD on 3 and rebooted. The CD couldn't be seen.
I re-connected the CD to drive 2 and rebooted and it was visible, so I changed drive letter to Z.
I then replaced it in 3 and rebooted - it disappeared again.
I have now put hard drives back on 1,2 and 4 and all are visible, so as before nothing can be seen on SATA 3.

 

[harryblue954]

Hello,
Suddenly, Windows XP SP3 can't see any drive attached to SATA Port 2 on my ASUStek P5KPL-AM motherboard.

The missing drive is listed during initial BIOS boot sequence and can be seen perfectly if I load Linux via an external thumb-drive, so it doesn't seem to be a hardware problem.
It disappears once Windows loads and it isn't listed in Admin Tools.
I'd appreciate any suggestions please on how to persuade XP to find the missing port.

Just in case it's relevant, on reboot, Windows always says that a 'new printer' is attached, but can't ever seem to find the drivers for it. This is a mystery as no new printer has been attached and the existing printer works perfectly well. Just wondered if Windows might be confusing port with printer...?
Thank you in advance,
Peter

PS As XP is going to lose support it's probably time I upgraded both OS and contents of my old AT case, but perhaps I can please ask for suggestions on that once this current issue is out of the way ;o)

iy has to be mounted & format with a letter

 

[peterhow]

iy has to be mounted & format with a letter

Thanks for your reply.

All the drives are formatted and were working and perfectly until last week, but now the drive on SATA 3 has disappeared.
I have changed all cables and drives around several times.
All drives can be seen and work fine when connected to other SATAs.
So cables are good and drives are all working perfectly.
But any drive (HD or DVD) connected to SATA 3 disappears in XP, though it is listed in BIOS.