Drives not showing up

[jepeters]

I took out 5 old hard drives from my video editing computer and replaced them with 2 400 GBdrives (the boot drive stayed in). Everything worked fine until I decided to add another drive (250GB). When I did, not only did that drive not show up, but I lost one of the other large drives.

I have tried every combination of cables, IDE controllers (there are 6 available), slave-master settings, etc., but now I am only able to see my boot drive and the 250GB drives.

There have been a few occasions when the 400 GB drives show up in My Computer, but they don't have the correct name (they are labeled 'Local Drive X') and when I double click on them, it gives me an error message. The drives DO show up when I go to the BIOS setup.

When I first put these 400 GB drives in, they worked fine and I was able to transfer the data from my old drives to them. Last night I put the drives on a different computer and the worked, so the drives themselves have not failed.

What am I doing wrong?

[Kareeser]

What are your Master/Slave/Cable Select jumpers set at now, for all of your drives?

Secondly, can you see all of your drives in the bios?

[jepeters]

I did a full re-install of Windows.

For some reason, I can not get the two 400gb drives to both work off of one IDE connection. They have to be on a separate IDE connector, and even then they only show up if I have the jumpers set for Slave.

But, all 4 drives are showiing up now.

[Gizmo]

Are both drives of differing manucturers to each other? If so, it's possible that the BIOSs on both drives don't understand each other when they are both on the same PATA channel, and are therefore better off on their own channels. I don't think weird jumpering will cause that issue while both drives are on the same channel.

[jepeters]

Both drives are Seagate 400gb, same model.

I had everything working for a time Sunday night---then the computer locked up. When I restarted, I had lost drivers for on-board ethernet, sound, and for on-board ata 133. USB would also cut out on occasion.

I put in a separate network card and got my internet connction back. Then all of a sudden that quit working. After a couple of restarts on Monday morning, the internet was working again.

The drivers for the 3 motherboard components are on the MB cd--but when I point to the folder containing the drivers to re-install them, I just get a message saying that there are no drivers in that location.

Getting very frustrated.

I have a total of 5 hard drives on this system right now. The 2 on IDE 0 are working. 2 DVDs on IDE 1 are working. Neither drive on IDE 2 and 3 are working. The fifth drive is connected to a separate Maxtor 133 controller card. Right now that drive is showing up and working, but last night and earlier this morning, it wasn't. I just don't see any rhyme or reason as to what is going on.

On Saturday I also lost my onboard drivers for sound, IDE and ethernet. I didn't realize that the IDE drivers were for 2 of the on-board channels, I thought they must be for my Maxtor IDE card, so I didn't bother re-installing because I didn't have anything connected to that card at the time. On Sunday I did a full re-install of windows and everything was working again (except for the extra hard drives, which worked later on after putting them on separate channels as slaves). When I lost my drivers again yesterday and couldn't get them re-installed, I decided to do another full re-install--but this time, my drivers didn't come back on. Not to mention that I now get a message saying that I have used my activation key too many times.

[glc]

Motherboard model, please. Also, how many IDE cards and what other cards are in the system? Brands and models of all the hard drives, please. Some details such as this would be helpful. Are *all* your IDE cables 80 wire Ultra ATA? (You should be using those for all hard drives, and you should be using Cable Select jumpering) Are you sure you aren't reading the jumper blocks upside down? Been there done that a few times. Are you setting all drives up as basic disks, or are some of them dynamic?

[jepeters]

MB: AOpen AX4B PRO-533

One Maxtor ATA133 IDE card. this connects to a single HD in a removable tray. I'm not at home right now, but I think this is a Maxtor HD, 120GB. Sometimes this drive shows up, then it doesn't.

4 on-board IDE channels. The first pair is connected to my boot drive, one data drive and 2 DVDs. These drives are working fine. The second pair is ATA 133, and here is where I am having problems. I have the 2 400GB Seagates hooked up to these, one on each connector. The computer loses the driver for these for some reason, and I have trouble getting the driver to re-install from the CD that came with the motherboard--it says that there is no driver at the location I designate, yet it IS the correct folder.

I'd have to check the cables when I get home, but I'm quite sure they are all 80 pin. Jumpers had the closed end, so they aren't upside down.

I have a SoundBlaster Live card and a Matrox Millenium G550 installed. These have always been in the machine before (it's 3 1/2 years old). Since I lost my on-board ethernet connection, I stuck in a different network card last night.

What is happening is that once I get everything working, the computer will be fine for about 15 minutes. Then I will lose my internet connection, or, everything will just lock up. When I re-start the computer, my ata drivers are gone, my internet won't work, USB2 drivers are gone, as is on-board sound (which I don't need). The Internet gets lost whether I'm using on-board ethernet or an add-in card, yet the device manager says that the add-in card is working properly.

Then, after several re-boots, the computer is able to find the missing drivers and everthing is ok for another 15 minutes or so, then the process repeats.

[glc]

I meant upside down as in holding the drive wrong side up when you look at the chart and look at the drive.

[jepeters]

I didn't THINK that an 'upside down' jumper would make a differece. :)

Anyway, I've got it working. I unplugged the cables from on on-board ATA 133 connectors and put both 400 gb drives on the Maxtor ata 133 add-in board, and it's working just fine.When I did this, the 120 GB drive that was also attached to this board started showing up as well.

I had tried using this ata card before and they didn't work, so I must have had something else wrong on those occasions. One 400 gb drive is a Master and the othe 400gbr is a Slave, and they are showing up that way. It's been working for hours, so I think all is ok. I would prefer being able to use the motherboard channels, but I'll just leave well enough alone.

[not important]

I didn't THINK that an 'upside down' jumper would make a differece.

I believe glc meant: looking at the jumper settings upside down, meaning the left to right configuration, they would appear backwards.

[jepeters]

Yes, I realize that from his 2nd post. What I was sayng above was that I thought jumpers COULD go on 'upside down', but I thought he was telling me that they COULDN'T go on upside down, which didn't make sense because I've been putting them on that way a long tmie, but I didn't want to challenge his statement (and glad I didn't because I misunderstood him)

[steve_77]

not too off topic but is it typical for a computer/MB with sata support and IDE support to not list/show the sata drive on the bios/post boot thing --

like i installed a mb with ide and sata support - hooed up my old crdom to ide and a brand new disk to sata - NO - O.S. is installed yet but when the system boots and shows how much ram and , the drives and such - it only reports the IDE cdrom and does not show the sata drive - but when i tried to install the os the os found it -- btu is it typical to not show up on the start-up screen?