{RESOLVED}Can't find HD

[kookala]

Help! I've searched for this answer & it's probably there somewhere & I just can't find it. I reformatted my pc & it was running great until I realized the 2nd HD is not showing up. I checked and realized I needed to convert to FAT32 since it's a larger drive & did that thinking that would help, but it didn't.

This is the 1st time I've reformatted with a 2nd drive - should it just show up as new hardware or do I have to do something else? I've tried everything I can think of and I'm sure there is something I should have done differently.

Added: Is this a really dumb question? I was hoping I could fix it pretty quickly - I don't want to load all my software, etc. & find out I have to format all over again or something to fix this...can somebody help me...I'm stranded!

 

[SavvyLady]

When you formatted you needed to have repartitioned at that time. Now the only way to partition is to get partition magic or some program similar. ( unless you want to start over)



Savvy

 

[kookala]

Thanks so much for the help...

I guess I don't know how to do that??? When I partition will it automatically recognize two completely different harddrives? Can you give me just the basic steps?

 

[SavvyLady]

Oh wait... Im sorry... you need a slave drive.. I was thinking you meant two different drives on one harddrive.

Setting up a slave drive is something I don't know a thing about... but Im sure someone here does.

Savvy

 

[kookala]

Okay, but that doesn't help me. Am I totally clueless or what? How do I get my computer to recognize that drive. I've tried every way I can think of to add hardware...

 

[brianF]

So you have two hard drives attached to your machine, not a partitioned drive correct.

Primary hard drive is working fine as you can run windows.

Slave not showing up????

You say you converted to fat32, how did you do that, by running fdisk and repartitioning the slave drive, did you reformat if after you partitioned it. Windows won't recognize an unformatted drive.

Also you can run fdisk from the dos prompt, answer Y to the lba question, choose option #4 for partition info, make sure the second drive is showing or you may have to select it from the menu. What does fdisk say about the drive????

 

[kookala]

Um...let's see, 1st of all, I did not run fdisk before I formatted my c drive because I didn't know about it. 2nd, I converted to FAT32 through system tools after I had reinstalled win98. I read you could do this somewhere, but maybe it was the wrong thing to do. Everything is running great & if I didn't know that drive was there I would be oblivious & happy!

I don't see how I can do anything as far as partitioning or formatting the slave since I can't get my system to recognize it either through windows or dos.

 

[brianF]

Oh I see, you changed the working drive to fat32, that shouldn't have anything to do with the slave that I can think of

If dos won't recognize it your going to have to check the the cables are firmly attached to the slave, pin1 to the red stripe on the cable on both the drive and motherboard connections.
Make sure the slave jumper is set to slave, primary to master, not single.

Enter bios setup, make sure ide channel that slave is attached to is enabled and set to auto detect or manually detect the drive.

the bios should read the full capacity of the drive with the correct cylinders, heads, etc.

 

[kookala]

How do I know which ide channel it's attached to? Can you tell I'm a "junior member"?

 

[brianF]

Your machine has two ide channels

1. Primary, able to support two devices, your master hard drive will be attached to this cable as Master, anyother device attached to the same cable will have to be primary slave.

2. Secondary, this is another ide cable attached to the secondary port on the motherboard, this cable can also hold two devices, one master and one slave.

Only way to tell is to open machine and check the cables, if the second hard drive is on the same cable as the primary it will be the primary slave and will need to be jumpered as slave and the primary slave bios option enabled.

If it's on the other cable, it can be either master or slave depending on the jumper on the back of the drive, bios is the same, whichever it is has to be set to auto detect or manually detect the drive

 

[kookala]

Okay, I'm gonna check it out - you have been great. I'll let you know what happens.

 

[kookala]

BrianF - you are going to laugh for days about this one...I'm so embarassed. There is no second harddrive. What a big surprise. I guess you solved my problem. Just so I don't look like a total idiot, we have several of these old PB macines around the office & all of them but this one have a 2nd drive. I never even paid attention when I started working on it. Sorry to waste your time.

I will be reformatting another computer that really does have a 2nd hd. Would you mind telling me how I should proceed from the start on that one?

 

[brianF]

The second drive doesn't even come into the equation unless you want to format it also. If so, do the first one, reload windows, then format the second drive from within windows, it's easier, and safer as windows won't allow you to format the operating system drive while in windows.