Harddrive not detected

[rajmuchhala]

Hello all,

My system is not detecting my harddrive even though the bios does. What could be the issue?

Specifics:

If I boot my computer and watch the BIOS messages, it will attempt to detect my drive & print a message saying no drive detected. The boot then fails.

If I boot my computer, enter setup and navigate to the primary hard drive section, it will eventually detect it (with correct manfucturer and spindle info ect). If I save & allow to boot, it will still fail.

Finally, if I enter setup and change configuration to manual and key in all the HD settings the boot still fails (and the BIOS still will not detect the drive).

BTW: this is definately _not_ and HD issue. I've swapped out the drive & still get the same result...

Help! Any thoughts? Even just knowing _where_ the issue probably lies would be helpful...

Thanks in advance,

Raj

 

[Mr5oh]

This may be a dumb question, but have you tried changing cables? A faulty IDE cable could cause wierd problems like this.

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[rajmuchhala]

... yeah - no luck...

 

[khha4113]

What are the brands of mobo and HD (as well as its capacity)?

Good or Bad have no meaning at all, depends on what your point of view is.

 

[rajmuchhala]

The motherboard is an Asus P3B-F.

Test HardDrive One is a Maxtor 20G
Test HardDrive Two is a Western Digital 8.5G

The board has two IDE connections - a primary and a secondary. Oddly enough, if I have the Zip and CD-ROM connected to the secondary they are both detected. If I put either HD on the secondary the HD's are not (unless I'm in Setup, of course).

Oh, and also, I just tried installing W2K from CDROM to see if it could gain access to the HD via whatever magic the installation program does. It can. After install, however, same issue as before - BIOS does not detect and system will not boot.

-Raj

 

[Crashman]

Hmmm...
Well, the WD should be set jumperless if it's single. The Maxtor might be too large for older BIOS versions. You actually have a GREAT board, with BIOS revision 1014 beta 3 you can actually run a Tualatin Celeron 1100 at 1466MHz using the Upgradeware Slot-T adapter set at 1.65v. That combination would set you back around $60 ($40 for the CPU, $20 for the Slot-T adatper). And the later BIOS supports drives at least 120GB in size.

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[rajmuchhala]

I suppose I should have made it clear that the 20G drive is the original for the system and had worked fine until recently... Given that, is this a shot motherboard? Could a bad battery cause this, perhaps?

 

[endyen]

You might want to try the drives in other systems, those are two of the most problematic drives ( WD<20 megs and maxtor 20 + 40 megs) I've ever had to deal with.
The WD drive may work, if you load the AT specs.

 

[Crashman]

I doubt the board is bad, it could be just a bad IDE cable. But I wouldn't mess with the onboard IDE controller for your hard drives any more, because they only support ATA33. On MY P3B-F I ran a Promise Ultra ATA100 controller card, it made my drive access MUCH faster.

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<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>

 

[El_Jefe_77]

Not only does this above good suggestion make the drives faster, but i also sidesteps a mobo's lame wants for low-end hardrives. In general, a Promise ATA-100 controller will work better for you even if the hd isnt 100 ata!

 

[rajmuchhala]

Well, in the end it was an invalid jumper setting on the Western Digital and a bad Maxtor HD. I thought I had checked the jumper but I guess not... Thanks for all the suggestions! I think I'll look into the ATA-100 controller...

Cheers,

Raj