Hard Drive Recognition

I am attempting to add a second hard drive to a system using Windows ME. The CMOS recognizes the drive and System Properties shows the drive installed but I cannot get a drive letter assigned; therefore, I cannot access the drive.
When I first installed the drive my CD-Rom was assigned the letter D. When I booted up, the hardware profile was updated and the new hard drive was assigned the letter D and showed up in Windows Explorer even though it used the CD icon. No CD-Rom was shown. I subsequently changed my CD-Rom to drive letter E and since then cannot get to the new drive.
The new drive is set to slave and is on the primary IDE as is the existing hard drive (set as master). This shows up properly in CMOS.
Please help - I am going berserk!

 

EdMoody Let's blow away the basics... Are you able to see the drive in DOS? If so, have you fdisked, partitioned and formatted it? Have you double checked the ribbon cable orientation and the pins in the drive socket for integrity? Have you tried getting installation software from the web site for that drive? Have you double checked the cmos setting for something dumb like you forgot to enable DMA or if the other drive doesn't use DMA then disable it?

Lots of ??? Perhaps post back with all the details of your system such as drive makes, types, bios type/version, and whatall. That may just hit someone that has been through it all before and get you going faster.

BTW, There are some drive that won't work with some other drives (Doesn't play well with others) but we'll save that for the final cop out when we can't find anything else wrong.

 

Zephyr:
Thanks for your response.
I cannot see the drive in DOS since it does not have a drive letter assigned. Is there another way to find it?
The new drive is a refurbished generic 20 gb 7200 rpm hard drive of Japanese make that I bought on uBid. I don't know the make but they told me the part designation was Fast20. When it was visible on my first try, I saw in Windows Explorer that it had some data on it but I was not familiar with the file extensions. To my knowledge, there is not normally any installation software for hard drives since they do not require drivers. So the answer to the software question is no. The existing drive is a JTS C3200-2AS 3.1 gb. Both drives are DMA capable but neither is enabled.
The motherboard is an Amptron PM-9600 with the AMI BIOS updated 11/2/2000.

 

If you cannot see the drive in DOS (booting to a start-up disk) then it isn't being recognized by the cmos setting being used. If you have it set to auto detect on both drives and they're on the same channel, be sure the jumpers are set accordingly. As I said, some drives won't work with others on the same channel so you may want to try moving it to another channel.

Then possibly the drive will need to be installed using the manufacturers software to detect it and determine if you require an overlay to accomodate its size. That would depend on your bios capabilities and whether or not it would recognize a drive larger than 8 gigs. It probably does but I can't say for sure and want to cover all bases.

My gut feeling is you'll need some software to install the drive (maybe like Disk Manager) even if the bios size restriction isn't a factor. Those softwares can save you a lot of grief. They used to be available as freeware but I think that has changed. Try a Google search and see.

Once recognized, the rest is a cake walk, fdisk and partition, then format and go on down the trail.

I'll look around a little for something to help you and you do the same. Post back any results please.

HTH

 

A couple or three links.

These link may help you. I haven't found anything about a Fast-20 drive except ones listed as Ultra SCSI and you didn't mention running a SCSI controller card so I'll discount those. Perhaps the man who sold you that drive was referring to the money he made off it. A fast $20.





Ontrack



Tech-Review


HardwareHell

HTH

 

Zephyr
Bingo! DOS recognized the drive and after much fiddling around (mostly due to lack of knowledge on my part) I got the drive partitioned, formatted and assigned a drive letter. When I rebooted in Windows the drive was recognized and all is well.
Thanks greatly for your help - beleive me the appreciation is deep. Hope I've learned something.
Ed

 

That's certainly good news Ed!

I think the problem is, most people don't get much experience at installing hard drives so when the need arises, there's nothing to pull from. They can sure drive you up a wall at times. I'm glad you were able to beat it into submission. It's a tribute to your tenacity.

Best regards