windows doesn't detect my secondary hard drive

iowndrphil · 29-October-04, 06:25 PM

I have a Dell (sad i know but it was free) Dimension XPS T800r i have a p3 800Mhz processor. i have two hard drives a 60 GB Western Digitial which is my primary hard drive and i have a maxtor 40 GB the bios recognizes both drives but windows will not detect the 40 GB hard drive. I am trying to keep from low level formating the drive or any type of formatting for that matter as it has alot of my necessary data on it. does any one know how i can make windows see this hard drive? i have windows 98. i originally had xp and the hard drive was recognized but when i uninstalled xp it stopped detecting it. any solutions?

Rob · 29-October-04, 06:33 PM

Turn it off, unplug the drive, plug it back in, and turn it back on.

If it still doesn't recognize it, you might be a little short on the power as many proprietary computers come with a PSU that handles the bare minimum of what you got.

Rob

aaronrkelly · 29-October-04, 06:39 PM

Go to a friends house and plug the drive in their computer. This will tell you if there is something wrong with the drive or some setting on your computer. If you do get it recognized make a copy of your data incase your forced to format the drive in your PC........

corruptjoker · 29-October-04, 06:52 PM

Unhook your cd roms and hook it up to that one and see if it works.

TekXoID · 29-October-04, 06:52 PM

One thing is for sure:
The 40GB drive is formatted NTFS and Win98 will NOT be able to read anything off that.

Make sure your 60GB has it's jumper set to Master and the 40GB's set to Slave.
Then move back to XP. Reasons? Security, speed, and ability to read NTFS drives to name a few.

teh_spazz · 29-October-04, 06:53 PM

Rob, he said its detected in the bios. Plus, I ran two hdds on a 115 watt.

Anyhow, can we get some more info on the drive. i.e. was it taken from a different computer and slapped in? If so, you're gonna have to format. That happened to me. I brought some hdds home from intel that still had some netbatch data and I needed to format for it to be detected. Im sure there are other people who would know more than me.

anyhow, good luck!

BigAkita · 29-October-04, 07:02 PM

Right now, my money is on Tek. Bios recognizes, Win98 doesn't, sounds like an NTFS partition.

Rob · 29-October-04, 07:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by teh_spazz


	Rob, he said its detected in the bios. Plus, I ran two hdds on a 115 watt.

As my niece so delicately put it....

"Duh, Uncle Bob"

Yeah, Tek's right. I typed my post while I was trying to run out the door to work and now that I'm here, I can actually go back and read what he had written.

Tek's right....

*earth rumbling, windows shattering, loud chorus of monks chanting*

...you're better off going back to XP.

Rob

29-October-04, 06:25 PM		#1 (permalink)
iowndrphil Apex Techie Wannabe	windows doesn't detect my secondary hard drive I have a Dell (sad i know but it was free) Dimension XPS T800r i have a p3 800Mhz processor. i have two hard drives a 60 GB Western Digitial which is my primary hard drive and i have a maxtor 40 GB the bios recognizes both drives but windows will not detect the 40 GB hard drive. I am trying to keep from low level formating the drive or any type of formatting for that matter as it has alot of my necessary data on it. does any one know how i can make windows see this hard drive? i have windows 98. i originally had xp and the hard drive was recognized but when i uninstalled xp it stopped detecting it. any solutions?

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29-October-04, 06:33 PM		#2 (permalink)
Rob Advocatus Diaboli	Turn it off, unplug the drive, plug it back in, and turn it back on. If it still doesn't recognize it, you might be a little short on the power as many proprietary computers come with a PSU that handles the bare minimum of what you got. Rob

29-October-04, 06:39 PM		#3 (permalink)
aaronrkelly Apex Tech God	Go to a friends house and plug the drive in their computer. This will tell you if there is something wrong with the drive or some setting on your computer. If you do get it recognized make a copy of your data incase your forced to format the drive in your PC........

29-October-04, 06:52 PM		#4 (permalink)
corruptjoker Decept-Hoe-Con	Unhook your cd roms and hook it up to that one and see if it works.

29-October-04, 06:52 PM		#5 (permalink)
TekXoID Banned	One thing is for sure: The 40GB drive is formatted NTFS and Win98 will NOT be able to read anything off that. Make sure your 60GB has it's jumper set to Master and the 40GB's set to Slave. Then move back to XP. Reasons? Security, speed, and ability to read NTFS drives to name a few.

29-October-04, 06:53 PM		#6 (permalink)
teh_spazz Apex Master Tech	Rob, he said its detected in the bios. Plus, I ran two hdds on a 115 watt. Anyhow, can we get some more info on the drive. i.e. was it taken from a different computer and slapped in? If so, you're gonna have to format. That happened to me. I brought some hdds home from intel that still had some netbatch data and I needed to format for it to be detected. Im sure there are other people who would know more than me. anyhow, good luck!

29-October-04, 07:02 PM		#7 (permalink)
BigAkita n00b-ass reviewer	Right now, my money is on Tek. Bios recognizes, Win98 doesn't, sounds like an NTFS partition.