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not reading hd different setup

4K views 71 replies 5 participants last post by  Jack Horner 
#1 ·
I've got a custom built comp i'm trying to format, which i thought i had until xp setup said no hard drive detected. it has 2 western digital drives but they are connected directly to the mb w/weird red cables no ide and nowhere to put any apparently. It reads the dvr as master and reads nothing else when i boot. Ever heard of such? Anyone? Thanks in advance.
 
#2 ·
From your description you have SATA hard drives. Most of the time they are enabled by default in BIOS. So if there aren't showing there it's not just a Windows problem (which you might have also) It's also possible that you have IDE drives with a rounded cable. Which is i? Edit Doubt this

What is the make and model of your motherboard and to which connectors are the drives plugged in?
 
#3 ·
as far as i can tell i have no windows, i'm trying to get there. the mb is asus p4p800-vm series. all that i can tell you is that the comp says the dvr is primary master and reads nothing else, the 1 drive under that has 2 small cables connecting it to the mb but nothing else, the drive under that has 2 larger cables. They are rounded red cables with what looks like ide ribbon on the ends now one cable connects it to the dvr, the other to the mb. the one to the mb has labels. at the mb end it says ata100/133 system board, at the drive end it says ata100/133 slave, the cable connecting that drive to the dvr says ata100/133 primary at the dvr end. is this confusing you because it is confusing me and i thought i knew a little something. Any ideas?
 
#5 ·
Well, I'm a little confused :)

Some questions

Your hard drives are they called IDE, EIDE or ATA. Or are they called SATA?
Do your cables look like any of these at this link

http://www.planetmicro.co.uk/product_info.asp?stockcode=M000742

In your manual on the product identification page where it shows the layout of the motherboard (page 1-8?) are the hard drive cables plugged into what are labeled the pri. or sec. IDE connectors or are they plugged in to what is labeled SATA or SATA/RAID?

Do you know about setting the master and slave jumpers on a hard drive?

Don't worry about installing Windows yet.
 
#6 ·
they are rounded ide cables (i looked them up on the net) as to which connectors the are connected to, I have no clue, but the guy who built this computer has been doing it all his life and i am sure he knew what he was doing. Unfortunately he is no longer with us.
 
#10 ·
yes it had xp pro on it and it was working except it had a lot of malware and spyware and other stuff we couldn't remove by restoring. as for the drives they both say ata. i don't really know about jumper settings but it should be illustrated on the drive right?
 
#20 ·
As long as you're in there make the CD/DVD drive first and hard drive second.

For some reason your system doesn't think there are any hard drives. I believe you said there are two hard drives any you haven't changed any jumper settings on them. On both drives make sure that the ID cable connector (one to each drive) is tightly connected. Same thing for where the cable connects to the motherboard and for the power connectors to the drives.
 
#25 ·
Your motherboard has SATA and SATA/RAID connectors. I think (I hope :D ) we have determined that you are not using SATA hard drives! The connectors (not necessarily the cable) should look like the same as what goes to the DVD.

Look at the back of the hard drives, near where the IDE cable connects. How are the jumpers set on each drive?
 
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