computer won't boot up

Dell Dimension 5100; two Maxtor HDs (SATA), which were running without incident until last night.
When I power up the computer now, I get the following message:
"error auto-sensing secondary slave HD drive. Strike F1 to continue, F2 to run setup utility "

F1 gives me the following:
"No boot device available. Strike F1 to retry boot, F2 for setup utility "

F2, under System, Boot Sequence, shows the following:
"1. onboard or USB floppy
2. onboard SATA HD (not present)
3. onboard IDE HD (not present)
4. onboard or USB CD-ROM drive
5. USB device (not present) "

F2 under Drives, shows:
"Diskette
Drive 0: SATA-0: Maxtor 6Y080M0 (the interface is enabled and attached device is usable)
Drive 1: SATA-2: Maxtor SABRE capacity unknown (the interface is enabled and attached device is usable)
Drive 2: PATA-0: SONY DVD ROM
Drive 3: PATA-1: PHILIPS DVD +/- RW

Ironically, the backups of my primary HD are on my secondary HD - neither of which appears to be accessible to me now.

I've opened up the case and made sure all the connections are tight. I've tried powering up the computer a number of times (sadly, always with the same results). The computer makes noise when I fire it up, with an unusual number of lights flashing on the front of the tower, and a repeated soft but distinct "beep, beep, beep" that goes on for maybe 30 seconds. After that, the sound diminishes to the usual level (basically the noise of the fan running, I think).

Any suggestions as to how I might troubleshoot this? The computer is 5-6 years old, so I'm not averse to getting a new one, but I obviously WOULD like to recover my data, if possible. It seems odd that both HD drives would go at once - the computer worked fine yesterday morning, and there were no storms or power outages during the day (for whatever it's worth, the computer is plugged into a UPS). I have a laptop on hand, but I've read that hooking up the "bad" drives to a good drive might corrupt my good drive, and I don't want to risk losing my laptop as well!

Any help would be greatly appreciated!!

 

As per JSS3rd's suggestion, I disconnected the cables to the secondary HD. After an initial message saying "Drive 1 not found: Serial ATA, SATA-2. Strike F1 to continue, F2 to run setup utility ", I pressed F1, and lo & behold, the computer booted up just fine. Will wait until another day to troubleshoot that secondary HD, but in the meantime, I'm backing everything up to an external HD, just in case. THANK YOU JSS3rd!!!

 

Just to alleviate any confusion (since my suggestion didn't appear as a response to her BBS post), Rebecca and I email each other frequently. She wrote that she had posted her problem on the BBS, but my suggestion that she disconnect the second hard drive (which apparently was the cause of her problem) was made in an email message to her.

FWIW, I've had this problem myself. Still, I should have made my suggestion on the BBS.

 

wanted to share my experience, I've replaced my IDE cable (IDE time hehehe).