Can't get Slave Drive to show up

[presto]

1) Computer would occasionally refuse to boot.

2) I removed the master drive to see if I could get data off using another computer.

3) Found bad power cable. The red wires going into the plastic plug were loose and could come out. I thought this might have been the whole problem all along.

4) Put master drive back in using another power plug.

5) Computer booted fine and I thought problem was solved.

6) Noticed that slave drive no longer exists in windows.

When I boot up I can see that only the master drive is identified in the boot up screen. If I unhook the master disk, the slave disk will slow up correctly. I thought it must be a jumper problem but I have tried every possible jumper setting.

Could it be something in the bios set up?

[unclebud]

Yes, check in the BIOS to see that your drives are showing up there.
Are your drives jumpered as Cable Select or are they Master and Slave.
The Master drive should be at the end of the ribbon cable with the Slave on the middle connector.

[fritzi93]

Well, this is a coincidence. This morning, my computer wouldn't boot.

1) Slapped in another HD as master. Always have at least one extra on hand with the OS and all apps properly configured. Booted, no slave drive.

2) Rebooted. Went into BIOS, yup, ain't there. Replaced ribbon cable, rebooted, that fixed it. Okay.

3) Put the original HD back in, no boot. WTF?

4) Put the clone back in as master, the original as slave, transferred all documents I needed to save.

5) Ran HDTune on the slave, it said it was not "healthy", and would soon fail. Just as I suspected. Trash it.

Now what gets me is why would both the hard drive and the ribbon cable go bad at once?

[presto]

Yes, check in the BIOS to see that your drives are showing up there.
Are your drives jumpered as Cable Select or are they Master and Slave.
The Master drive should be at the end of the ribbon cable with the Slave on the middle connector.

The slave drive will not show up in the bios if the master drive is in place. If I unhook the master drive, then the slave drive shows up properly.

I tried having both as cable select and I tried setting the master as master and the slave as slave. No difference.

And here is the part I really don't understand. I took out the master drive and put in a new one and master and slave both show up in the bios.

This leads to the conclusion that it is the original master drive itself that is causing the problem. Can a drive fail in such a way that it blocks the slave?

My brain hurts.

[unclebud]

In the past some drives such as Maxtor would refuse to work with a Western Digital drive on the same chain. Haven't seen this happen in several years though.
Can you switch the drives and use the 2nd drive as the master and the original drive as slave. Also have you tried putting the 2nd drive on the secondary chain with the CD?
Do you have any other drives you could try?
UB

[Krispy Kritter]

Assuming the slave was bad as you stated, it could just be a coincidence that after swapping cables the drive worked.