2nd Sata Hard Drive not Detected in BIOS

v11nce

Honorable
May 7, 2012
4
0
10,510
I’ve got 2 x 1TB Samsung HHD in my machine. The set-up had been that only one of the drives was in use (with 4 partitions – C:100GB boot partition, D:150GB, E:250GB & F:500GB). At that point both of them could be seen in bios. Now a few days ago the main hard drive developed a fault (XP would not boot up, could not get into safe mode, could not repair it etc - However at this point both of them could still be seen in BIOS) so I opened up the machine and swapped them around and did a clean install of WinXP on the hard drive which had never been used. During the install XP did detect the 2nd drive (the corrupt one) and the new one was partitioned in exactly the same way/size.

Now I have data on the old corrupt drive (on partitions D,E & F) and was hoping that I would somehow be able to access that when logged into XP with the new drive and copy it across. However now I cannot even see the corrupted drive in bios or in computer management in XP.

Currently XP takes longer to load when both drives are connected (sata 1 new drive & sata 2 corrupted drive), however when I disconnect sata 2 then XP loads much quicker.

So is my problem caused due to both drives having a boot partition with an operating system installed on it (even though ones not working)? How do I overcome this so that I can access the old data on the corrupted drive whilst logged in on the new one?
 
Yeah, your problem is that BIOS is seeing both drives as a bootable device, so it considers your system to be a dual boot config, so you won't be able to see the second drive from your new Windows install. Your best option might be to download a Linux distro, Ubuntu is fairly user friendly, and create a Linux live CD. Instructions on that can be found on Ubuntu's website. Boot from the live CD into Linux and it should be able to see both drives provided they are both enabled in BIOS, then assuming your data is recoverable copy it over onto a device that you know is good.

After that do what you will with the old drive. If the fault was in the file system, reformatting the drive might get it working again. If it is a physical fault with the drive, or a controller problem, you probably will need to replace it.
 

v11nce

Honorable
May 7, 2012
4
0
10,510
Well since the new install on the hard drive, whilst in BIOS it is only showing one drive now:

SATA 1 : [SAMSUNG HD103SJ] (new one)
SATA 2 : [NOT DETECTED] (corrupt drive)
SATA 3 : [TSSTcorp CDDVDW SH]
SATA 4 : [NOT DETECTED]
SATA 5 : [NOT DETECTED]
SATA 6 : [NOT DETECTED]

When previously it was showing (even when the original hard drive was corrupt/not working):

SATA 1 : [SAMSUNG HD103SJ] (corrupt drive)
SATA 2 : [SAMSUNG HD103SJ] (new one)
SATA 3 : [TSSTcorp CDDVDW SH]
SATA 4 : [NOT DETECTED]
SATA 5 : [NOT DETECTED]
SATA 6 : [NOT DETECTED]

I just tried the Linux live CD, however I only get to see the current new drive (not the old one with data). That's probably due to the 2nd (corrupt) drive not being picked up in BIOS?

Any other ideas that I can try?
 
Hmm, yeah if you aren't seeing the drive in the BIOS that means either the SATA port has failed, or the controller on the hard drive itself has failed, or maybe even the SATA cable has failed. Try switching the bad drive to another SATA port. Double check that the power connection is secured. If none of that gets the drive going again, you're probably out of luck. There are data recovery services that will take the platters out of the drive to recover data on a failed HDD, but they are ludicrously expensive.
 

v11nce

Honorable
May 7, 2012
4
0
10,510
I’ve found a workaround. I’ve removed the new hard drive (working) from SATA 1 and plugged just the old drive from SATA 2 into SATA 1. I’ve not attached the working drive to SATA 2. So set up is as follows:

SATA 1 : [SAMSUNG HD103SJ] (corrupt drive)
SATA 2 : [NOT DETECTED]
SATA 3 : [TSSTcorp CDDVDW SH]
SATA 4 : [NOT DETECTED]
SATA 5 : [NOT DETECTED]
SATA 6 : [NOT DETECTED]

Obviously with the corrupt drive Win XP does not load, I just get the windows is starting (with the logo) and it does not go any further.

However this time using Linux live I’m able to boot into Linux and see the data I require on the faulty drive (currently copying across to an external drive).

So based on that we can say that the controller on the faulty hard drive itself is ok. I don’t think there are any problems with the SATA 2 port or cable as they were working prior to me swapping the drives around yesterday. None the less once the data has finished copying over I’ll move the faulty drive from SATA 1 to SATA 2 and attempt to boot up/get into Linux and that will confirm (or not) that everything there seems to be in-order.

Now assuming that the above works out and there are no faults with SATA 2, what is the best/easiest way for me to format the faulty drive? I have no experience in how/where to go about formatting a drive in a situation like this.
 
If BIOS does not detect both drives when they are both plugged in to the SATA ports, that would indicate that either one of the SATA ports is dead, or there is a problem with the motherboard's SATA controller. You can try unplugging the computer and remove the CMOS battery for a couple of minutes and reset the CMOS that way, that may resolve it. If not try plugging the second drive into a different SATA port.

As for formatting the drive, you should be able to use your Windows XP CD, boot with the CD and format the bad drive with NTFS, that should get it working again if there is no damage to the disk itself. Since the data seems to be recoverable, most likely there was some damage done to the file system and reformatting should get it running again.

Alternatively you can reformat the bad drive in Linux, but make sure you use the NTFS file system when you do so, or the drive won't be readable on a Windows machine.
 

v11nce

Honorable
May 7, 2012
4
0
10,510
It looks like the hard drive was on its way out. I moved the faulty drive from SATA 1 to SATA 2 and it actually loaded Windows. I tried to restart and it would not shut down, it would just hang so I had to manually shut down and re-start. This time it did a disk check on boot up and then loaded Windows. At this point I thought maybe I’m okay now and attempted to shut down windows only to be greeted by some disk error message (that I had never ever seen before) and the system hanging. When I tried to re-start the drive was not even detected in BIOS and windows could not load. Thought I’d try a format by running the XP CD but at the install XP page it said a hard drive could not be detected.

(Incidentally the problem with the drive started a week ago when for a few days windows would not shut down, so I had to press the switch. And ever since then when starting Windows it was hit and miss, in that it took 5/6 attempts to start and gradually got worse over the next few days).

I have now got everything configured and up and running on the new drive. Have also purchased another drive where I have made a full clone of the drive, should the worst ever happen again (with both new drives connected up at the same time for the clone, they could both be seen in BIOS, so no problems with the SATA ports or motherboard's SATA controller - It was just the failing hard drive that was causing the problems).

Supernova1138, thanks for all your help.
 

greennjk

Honorable
Aug 5, 2012
2
0
10,510
I am also having the same problem like "I just get the windows is starting (with the logo) and it does not go any further.".

I have dual boot option. windows xp and ubuntu Bit got failed when loading. I just tried to reinstall windows. But It is not booting from CD even though boot device order shows as "P1:TSSTcorp CDDVDW SH-2 & P2:is sata hard diksk". I donbt know what do i do furthur. If you find the solution kindly tell me.