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SATA drive not recognized

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by lwpritchard

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Hi, I seem to be yet another user with a hard drive not recognized problem. I recently had to purchase a new computer after my old one died. I am trying to install a second HD in the new system, which is one of my old SATA hard drives. It has been previously formatted and contains only data. It shows up in Device Manager as working properly, but can be seen nowhere else (not in Windows Explorer, not in Disk management, not in BIOS). I am running a newly built system: WinXP Pro, Intel core2 quad on intel DG33FB motherboard, 2 G RAM, four SATA connectors (0 and 1 used by DVD and main HD, 2 native remain available). The drive in question is a Seagate Barracuda 7200.9, 300 GB, model number ST3300822AS.

Things I have tried so far include: 1) connecting this second drive to all available internal SATA as well as through an eSATA PCI card using an Icy Dock SATA enclosure; 2) connecting drive to a USB port using the Icy Dock. I can hear the drive spinning and WinXP ackowledges the USB connection with a chime. None of the connections seems to help.

Of course I do not want to re-format the drive because it contains all my data (most recent backup is 10 days old). Besides I can't see the drive in Disk Management to be able to re-format it even if I wanted to to do so.

I have spent quite a bit of time troubleshooting this issue to no avail. Any help would be much appreciated. Thank you.

5 replies

by thumbsup2

I don't know the answer, but didn't want it to drop off the radar screen.

by computercookie

look at this a couple of times it's easy although time consuming to replace text files and templates, but photos!!!

Possibly suggest a data recovery firm!

by fleury29

Is the primary HDD a SATA as well, or is it an IDE? If it's a IDE you may wanna check the jumpers...I believe you want the ide set as Master...but if its already set as master, go ahead and change it to slave. I believe I ran into the same problem. I know that SATA doesn't need jumpers, but I have had this problem. Just my two cents.

by lwpritchard

First of all, thanks for the responses and suggestions. I have managed to get the computer to recognize the drive. Here's what I did. I tried connecting via USB again using the Icy Dock. This time I was able to see the drive in disk management as a foreign drive. I'm not sure why this last time it showed up when previously it did not. Perhaps it was a cable connection issue, perhaps it had something to do with a recent WinXP update/reboot...? Anyway, from there I was able to import the foreign drive to the new computer. I was then able to fully see the drive and access files. Once that was accomplished, I was able to connect the drive to my native SATA connection. The drive is now mounted inside the computer and running smoothly. I just wish I knew for sure what the cause of the initial problem was.

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