Desktop

Ask something
Discussion Locked

Drive missing

0 helpful
19 replies

by qpeabody

Closed to new repliesThis discussion is closed. It stays readable, but it takes no new replies.
I recently had to replace a users pwr supply in a Dell dimension 4100. While waiting for it to come in, I connected the hard drives in a GX260, as slaves to allow the user to retrieve some data off of each drive. Since I reinstalled the HD's intothe system, I am unable to see the slave drive. Including in the BIOS. I've replaced IDE cables and switched around pwr cables. Any explanation as to how or why this may have happened? Any suggestions as to how I can fix this.

19 replies

by yimsemail

Check the HD jumpers and make sure it is set as slave or at least set primary as ( primary with slave present).

by qpeabody

I've tried settings at slave and cable select. Still not finding slave drive. Thanks

by csmith

I assume you reconnected the HD just as it was, including jumper settings.
What usually happens is that in the handling, one of the cables from the hard drive electronic board to the inside of the drive gets moved very slightly.
This usually does not cause it to not be recognised by the BIOS.
The last time that happened, there was a very small crack in the pad where the +5 volt lead was soldered to the board, and there was no +5 volts to the electronics.
This crack was caused by a stubborn power plug, and slightly above normal force applied to remove it.
I resoldered it. Problem gone.
This is a start.
Regards, Chris

by tg2

the other possibility.. the drive died

while I'm not the most ginger person on the planet, I'm relatively good at not dropping or manually causing harm to electronics, but last week I had two drives die on me.. the bios just stopped seeing them, one of them we knew was bad from the *ker-klunk* sound it made when powering on the pc...

your user may not like that.. but its something to consider..

by qpeabody

I have considered this, the only problem is, the drive still starts up. I hear and feel it. So if it did died, it wasn't a physical failure. Thanks

by jsolari020

remove the drive and check the jumper settings, also if you do not know how tghe jumpers should be set look up the jumper settings on the manufacturer site. Make sure conenctions are all connected correctly to.

by paulp

Did you check the jumper on the drive in the system you're adding the slave drive to?
Sometimes there are seperate jumper settings for "Master - only 1 drive in system" and "Master - 2 drives in system".

by qpeabody

This particular drive was set as slave, so it didn't matter what the HD in the other computer was sat on when we accessed it. If there was a conflict, i.e. second drive set as Master, I would have gotten an error message saying "....primary 0 or primary 1 not found." Thanks

by kwduke

Can you still see this hard drive in the "test" computer.. if it can read it, the drive is still good,I'm sure you knew that...

How are you plugging the drives back into the dell... both hard drives on IDE cable 1 (master and slave)...
or IDE channel 1, master=Primary HD and slave=Cdrom..IDE channel 2,master=problem hd
slave=0
if so maybe when removeing the PS from Dell it shorted out the 2nd IDE channell.?.. this happened to me on a brand new server from dell, PS was bad and it shorted out whole motherboard as well.

by tg2

Not true regarding the drive started... I felt it..

I've got TWO drives on my bench right now..

BOTH are not seen by the controllers in THREE different boxes... one drive spins up perfectly fine, while the other whines during startup..

what I figured.. if I had another drive that was physically bad in heads or cylinders or rotator motor.. I could pull that logic board off... put it onto the one that sounds perfectly fine.. and a new controller board may be all it needs..

so.. I'vegot two one that you can hear some bad sounds too.. but that DID work prior to its disappearance off the IDE channel.. and one that sounds perfectly normal.. it just doesn't get seen...

If I'd flashed bios, or flashed the drive with new code.. then I'm sure it could have been the cause.. but there were NO changes other than to put another identical drive on to the machines.. they saw them right there.

so.. when in the end it comes to possibility.. its easily possible.. its easily probable... contact that drives manufacturer.. ask them if they've ever had drives that sound fine but don't id.. see what they say... :)

by diamondwind

On a Dell system, the drives ship from the factory set to cable select.

Try this method to determine point of failure:

First of all, remove all bootable media (disconnect all IDE / ATAPI devices from the motherboard). Next, simply plug the suspect hdd into the primary IDE controller in a single drive configuration (i.e. set the drive to cable select and plug the drive in on the very end of the ribbon cable opposite the end connected to the motherboard) Start the system and enter BIOS. On the Dim4100 Delete is the key to enter BIOS. Once in BIOS. press F9, press Enter to reset BIOS defaults, go to the Advanced page and press enter on Boot configuration, change the line that says Reset Config Data to either Yes or Enabled whicheveris applicable (to clear NVRAM). Then press F10 and press Enter to save the changes and exit. At this point the computer should run the Automatic IDE configuration and redetect all PnP hardware as well.

If the drive is still not detected in BIOSafter doing the steps above, swap the ribbon cable with a known good cable.

Most newer Dells have onboard IDE drive diagnostics that can be accessed by holding CTRL+ALT and tapping the D key after the keyboard has been detected by BIOS during POST. If you want to check the drive with that quick test it should tell you if the drive is dead or not. The test should take between 90seconds and 3minutes.

I hope this helps. Best of luck to you.

This discussion is closed to new replies.