Solved: Hard Drive missing in windows vista

My primary hard drive is SATA and my secondary hard drive is IDE. Most of the time, the secondary hard drive is missing - it doesn't show up in windows explorer, etc. Then suddenly, upon reboot, the computer sees it and makes it available....then suddenly, a week later, it's gone again. Help!

 

Sounds like a loose connection or a faulty SATA cable. Check the cabling inside the PC.

 

I'll check the cabling....the SATA one works fine - it's the other hard drive that I am having issues with...

 

There is no master/slave relationship in a Sata as the controller is completely different and the cable is always wired to serve only one hard disk.

You should set your IDE disk to Mater and it will be there permanently.

It is time for you to check the hardware connection too.

 

I would change the cable...are you certain it is a 40 pin 80 wire cable? If it's not the cable then the drive would be suspect.

 

Guys - Thanks for all your help. Very very much appreciated. I changed out the cable and the power supply. Now it boots 4x faster, and the hard drive pops right up along with the DVD. YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Hey another happy ending!!!! How about marking the thread solved by using "thread tools" at top.