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alegator

2 Intern

 • 

587 Posts

5994

November 16th, 2004 22:00

BIOS does not detect my 2nd Drive...!

I'm posting this as I'm lost after having performed all possible tests. This is the issue:

1) I have been using my system with 2 internal HD's without any problem (both configured to "Cable Select")
2) Last week I was performing some backup operations which involved connecting/disconnecting the 2nd HD frequently as I exchanged it with other drives.
3) At one point the 2nd HD would not show up anymore in "MY COMPUTER" or under "Disk Management" in "Administrative Tools".
After that point I did all of the following tests to start discarding possible causes of this:
  • I replaced the 2nd HD with two other HD's I have, both correctly formatted and configured to Cable Select, and the still they are not recognized.
  • I replaced the 1st HD with the 2nd HD and the system boots fine (the 2nd HD also has WinXP Pro installed as it is a copy if the first one)
  • Therefore it's not the 2nd HD being faulty
  • I then thought the power cable to the 2nd HD might have broken after so many connects/disconnects, but I discarded this also as I used successfully this connector to feed the 1st HD booting correctly.
  • I then thought the IDE Data Cable might have been faulty after so many connects/disconnects, but then I discarded this too as I replaced it with a spare IDE Data Cable I have and the issue still persists.
  • I checked in Device Manager and the Primary and Secondary IDE Channels all show up as working properly, and the Intel Bus Master Ide Controller also shows as working properly.
  • I also tried entering BIOS Setup everytime I had the 2nd HD connected and whenever I tried to set IDE Device 1 (2nd HD) to AUTO after pressing enter it would show "Unknown Device" instead of DRIVE 1, and IDE DEVICE 0 would also show "Unknown Device"
  • The only way the PC can boot is by setting IDE DEVICE 1 in BIOS to "OFF"  and only then IDE DEVICE 0 in BIOS will show "HARD DRIVE"

Based on all of the above, can someone solve this puzzle? What is causing this? How can I fix it?

Thanks.

 

rapco

2 Intern

 • 

399 Posts

November 17th, 2004 12:00

Hi,

Yeah looks like a puzzle,

I got lost on some parts, but give a try to this,

Remove all IDE devices, including optical drives

Reseat BIOS to defaults (alt + F), or will be an option around there

Restart the computer, make the computer post with no IDE, then turn of the computer

Insert Optical drives on IDE Channel 1, and check if the bios recognize it, possibly it will

Again reseat the BIOS to defaults

Let it boot up, now turn off the computer

include the the HDD 2 (as I understant the one with problems)

and check again the BIOS.

 

Hope it works,

 

alegator

2 Intern

 • 

587 Posts

November 17th, 2004 14:00

Ok, I finally resolved the mistery! I called Dell Tech Support. I went thru the Dell Diagnostics rebootable CDROM and it was determined that devices attached to the Primary IDE Controller were not detected. So  I swapped the Primary and Secondary Data cables connecting to the motherboard and the PC was able to boot from the hard drive.
CONCLUSION: As I knew, the hard drives are healthy, but the Primary IDE Controller in the Motherboard is dead. Therefore, I will have the motherboard replaced. Luckily my PC is still under Warranty. In the meantime, and until I get the replacement, I'm using the main OS hard drive connected to the Secondary IDE Controller and everything seems to be working fine.

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