Removable Hard Drive Problems...

[sumilsay]

hey peeps, how is all?

i have an issue...

i have an older computer, a celeron 366 running windows 98. i have 128mb of ram, 3 1/2" floppy, cd-rom, 1 internal hard drive, and 1 other hard drive in a removable bay.

the internal hard drive has the operating system on it, and i want the removable hard drive to hold all the working files and media.

upon boot up, all devices are detected. 2 hard drives, the floppy and the cd-rom. when i get into windows, i go to my computer and it shows the floppy drive (a, the internal hard drive (c, and the cd-rom (d. but there is no second hard drive.

i have tried two other hard drives and the outcome is the same. detected on boot up, but not in windows.

has anyone experienced this? or does anyone have any suggestions? i have talked to a few people, some say that the bays have to be locked in order for windows to detect the drive. but others say it doesnt have to be locked. i have yet to try, but i will as soon as possible.

thanks for your time everyone,
.me.

 

[diulasing]

Are your HD set as Master and Slave ? and your CD-rom as seperate device.
Did you go into BIOS and use ' auto detect ' to detect the HDs ?
I had one HD when use as slave did not need any jumper at all.
Also you can try to start with bootable floppy and format that HD and FDISK it first. then hook it up. May be then it will be recognoised.
john Sr

 

[franklin97355]

Which IDE connector is the Removable HD connected to? Make sure the secondary IDE is turned on in bios.

 

[sumilsay]

on one setup i tried, i had the removable bay connected as the primary slave and the internal drive as primary master. in another setup, i had the internal drive alone and the removable bay set as secondary slave and the cd-rom being secondary master.

neither worked, but again, i havent tried locking the bays yet. do you think that matters? i know for some it does. and as for the cmos, i will try some things in there too. but this has all got to wait til after work, unfortunately.

keep the suggestions coming please. i'd like to have as much as possible for when i do attempt the fix, i will have many different possibilities.

thanks for your time everyone.
peace!

 

[VMPhilosophy]

according to one of the manuals to a moble rack that im looking at here its says that you DO have to lock it.

"Did you ever wish a circle was a square, so when land sharks start circling the boarders you can just cut them off at the corners?" - Aesop Rock

 

[bcastner]

Is the removable drive partitioned and formatted?

I think the locked disk argument has some merit, but be sure to check that there has not been a driver update.

In any case, try this:

1. Lock the device
2. In BIOS reset the extended parameters. This is called various names, but there should be a provision to allow the device chain settings to be reset even if unavailable as seperate items to configure. It might be called set to default settings.

Save and reboot. Go back into BIOS.

3. Set all of your needed settings, including enable, and auto on all 3 IDE subsystems.

4. Save and restart.

 

[G0AOZ]

You should always lock the drive before the PC is powered up. This prevents the drive being inadvertantly unplugged whilst it is running, which could lead to all sorts of damage being inflicted both electronically and to your precious data!

On some early drive trays, the keylock mechanism was purely to prevent the drive being removed. On most trays these days, the lock is not only a mechanical device, but also incorporates a switch to prevent drive reads and writes.

ROGER - G0AOZ.