I have 2 500GB HDD, but can only access 1

[spaztazticii]

I acquired a computer a while ago from somebody because they crashed it. I then re-installed windows 7 onto it and it works fine now. Although, I physically have 2 500GB HDD and can only access 1 of them from My Computer. I was wondering if there were a way to make this drive accessible as I am nearing critical mass on the 1 I have. I have checked all connections and all cords are plugged in. It just does not read the second HDD as ANYTHING. Could somebody please help me activate it?

 

[hang-the-9]

If it does not show up even in the BIOS, either he cable, drive or port you are using is bad. If it's an IDE drive, make sure you have the Master/Slave jumpers set to the correct values.

 

[SZ939]

Also make sure the 2 drives were not configured as a RAID 0/1 pair, because that would allow you to see only one drive. Many two bay Laptops allow this feature in the BIOS. Desktop PCs would require a RAID Controller Card.

One other thing you could try to test the second HDD would be to shutdown the PC and Boot of of only the Drive in question by removing the functional one. The BIOS would then tell you whether the drive is defective or not. Also, as previously mentioned, if the HDDs are IDE, check the Jumpers before testing the inoperative drive.

 

[Hawkeye22]

Has the 2nd drive ever been initialized via disk management? If not, it may need done before it will show up.

 

[spaztazticii]

Ok so my Bios says it exists but it doesn't have any capacity. It is a desktop computer, and I have restarted the computer with the working drive unplugged and I get an error. Could you walk me through initializing the drive from Disk Management. ( I don't know where it is.)

 

[spaztazticii]

I've gone into my Disk Management and it says "Disk 0...Unknown...Not Initialized". I then right click on it to initialize it and i got a message saying " The request could not be performed because of an I/O device error."

 

[spaztazticii]

I've changed where it's plugged into my MoBo and it's now reading it as my "CD Drive (D"

 

[fzabkar]

The fact that BIOS is reporting a capacity of 0 would suggest that the drive has a physical problem. Certain Seagate models have a simple fix for "0 LBA" problems. What is the model number? Is it a 7200.11?

 

[spaztazticii]

It is a Barracuda 7200.11 Seagate. This is a common problem then?

 

[fzabkar]

Yes, it is. See the following URLs.

Seagate 7200.11 BSY bug and 0 LBA fix:
http://sites.google.com/site/seagatefix/
http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=128807
http://www.overclock.net/hard-drives-storage/457286-seagate-bricked-firmware-drive-fix-pics.html
http://forums.seagate.com/t5/Barracuda-XT-Barracuda-Barracuda/SOLUTION-FOR-7200-11-SERIES-MAXTOR-SEAGATE-BRICKED-DRIVES/td-p/26009/page/1

 

[spaztazticii]

Is there an easier way to do this???

 

[fzabkar]

Yes, but you need specialised tools such as SalvationData's HD Doctor for Seagate, or STR3000-UDMA.

 

[spaztazticii]

Ok well. I'm going to do it the "hack" sort of way. i figure its easier than buying a repair kit...when for $3 i can do it.