Can't find Hard drive

[tweedledee]

I thought I'd start a new thread, but this is part of the ongoing drama. I have now re-installed XP several times and eventually have only one operating system (at last).
I have three HDD installed but can only see two of them. They are visible in device manager but not on my windows. I have had this happen before, but have forgotten how to fix it. Please help. Thanks.

[budz]

go to control panel......performance and maintenance.....click on administative tools....then computer management....then click on disk management....see if your other hard drives are there.....

make sure you have your jumper connections set correctly and you may try using another ide cable....over time those darn things will fail....

[Bodyslide]

Goto Control Panel/Administrative Tools/Computer Management

All your drives should be there. The one not showing up might need to be formatted. Good Luck

[redwudz]

A couple of easy things to try. In Device Manager, uninstall the channels the drives are on, reboot, and see it they show.

About the same thing, but unplug both drives and reboot. Shut down and plug one in, reboot. Repeat with the second drive.

These methods both let Windows find the drives again. When I put together a new computer, I usually just hook up one hard drive and one optical drive. Sometimes Windows has a problem seeing all drives on the first boot.

And do the drives show up in Disk Management? That's usually not much help as generally all you can do there is partition and format them. But you might check just to see if they show. I suspect they might be there, but Windows is not seeing them properly. If the drives are empty this is one option. But not with drives with data on them.

Others may have some additional ideas.

[tweedledee]

Yes, I'm seeing them in Device Manager. I have replaced the IDE ribbon, unplugged and re-plugged, and it still shows as Missing. It was working until I did the last install. I will try your suggestion sbout rebooting after disabling.

[tweedledee]

I have finally solved the problem. I had to format the drive.

[redwudz]

Bummer. But that's a good reason to backup important data before undertaking a reformat. Sorry no one could come up with a better solution. At least it's a Windows issue and no problems with the drives themselves.

[duffyr83]

I'm glad things worked out for you. However, i seem to be having a similar problem. I have an external hdd that will not show in My computer or in the disk management. I do see it in the device manager. Any suggestions on how to fix would be great. Thanks

EDIT: I walked away from the computer and when I returned the HDD was now visible, guess it just needed some time to be recognized.

[handyguy]

Something like Partition Magic would take care of this for you. It can find your drives for you & format if needed.

Im not sure if you needed formatting or parititioning, but PM takes care of those.