Hard drive problem

[qazxswed345]

I have a western digital 40 gig hard drive and the problem is that it wont
recognize it in "My Computer" i has the default hd and the sd drives and the floppy but not my new hd but the ironic thing is that at startup it says "Primary Slave: IDE Hard Disk"
What should id do?





P.S. if it means anything i have another drive that when i set up same way it works fine but its only 10gig and if u think that means my hd is broke it works at a friends house



Ricky

 

[technoman2]

have you set your Hard drive jumpers to slave?

 

[Kage]

Yeah, you'll have to make sure you set them in the default Master position, and make sure that if your using an IDE cable to connect the drive which has 3 conncetions (1 goes to the motherboard, one goes to slave, one goes to master) try switching using the Slave one to the Master one (Should be the connection at the top of the cable)

Most drives have a sticker to tell you which jumpers to use for what function

Hope this helps

 

[qazxswed345]

I already did all of this

 

[Kage]

What got me though was the fact you say it says primary slave, and yet if the hard drive is on its own, it should be a master

This wouldn't be the cause of it not showing though but might have helped.

I'm not sure i'm afraid. I gues it could be the way the drives are being managed.

Right click my computer and go to Manage, then find disk management on the list and click that.
Find the hard drive box that isn't working under Disk 0 in the menu (should be listed there) and click on it.

Right click the drive then and go to Change drive letter and paths. Then you can try changing the drive letter to one thats not being used. For example if C is being used, try changing it to D or E. Then accept it, and close the box and refresh/restart system.

Hopefully, it will now see it

Hope this helps

 

[David Lindon]

Set the jumpers to master and use the mater connector, the end one.

 

[Kage]

I tried mentioning that but didn't seem to help, though you've made it a bit clearer I tend to go on as you've probably noticed...

 

[qazxswed345]

when i click my computer the manage choice isnt there and also i use windows 98 and the hard drive is sposed to be just a slave to add space you know what i mean

thanx for replys

 

[Kage]

Hmm...Yeah, it might not have it..

But I think i have figured out the problem...

That drive must be formatted in the FAT32 file system to be seen in WIN98.
It seems to me it has been formatted in the NTFS file system, which will not be recognised as this is a new way of storing data.
If though you switched to WinXp, or anything newer, NTFS would be recognised and you'd see your drive, as your mate probably is using, or something reletivley new.

The only way of fixing this, would be to go to your mates house (get data off, if any since it seems you wouldn't of been able to copy anything onto it) and then reformat it in FAT32 which should be an option when doing so.

Use a bootdisc to access dos which you can create in Add/remove programs in win98 under Startup disc or something. Then reset the computer, making sure in bios that the floppy drive is set to run before the hard drive (first boot device, 2nd boot device etc.) and when it has ran, type this:

cd:\ (to get to the C drive (or main hard drive)
X:\ (this should then display underneath, x being the drive letter)
type format x:
and type y. You should be able to choose the type of file system around here.

If its Slave, all it would do is make it act as a slave. It would just be undermined by anything in Master, thugh this isn't the problem as i've now figured

I hope this clears things up

 

[qazxswed345]

thank you this could do the trick but ill have to see but sounds like a good point