Kid trouble...HDD now not recognised

[johntr@lineone.]

My friends kid turned on the PC, bashed the keys repeatedly and his dad switched off the PC during this boot, trying to help.

Settings have changed - clock date was reset to 1980!! though time was still correct.

My 2nd HDD - 20 GB Western Digital - is not showing on control panel, explorer etc. Has a fair bit of data I'd like to keep.

Have set BIOS to auto for both the primary master (settings/disk work fine still) and the unrecognised 2nd slave, but no dice. It appears gone and doesnt show on scandisk, fdisk etc.

EZ diagnose from WD looks and finds the drive ok, tests it ok and even reads the data directories on it....

So how do I get it back to my system? My well meaning tinkerings are doing nothing. Even reconnected the cables internally in the forlorn hope it may be the cause.

TIA

John

[classicsoftware]

Please go over th bios screen with a fine tooth comb.

It appears the key banging got them into the bios & something was altered.

Look at each screen carefully.....

[gwallen4]

Go to bios/cmos setup.

Your HDs should be listed there. If the auto setting doesn't work. Try the following setting for your 2nd HD.

Type: User
Cyls: 1023
Head: 16
Sector: 63

Some HDs won't be recognized with autodetect, but the above setting should work.

[johntr@lineone.]

thanks guys

have inspected the BIOS and to my untutored eye all of the HDD settings look ok in all the menus.

changed the 2nd disk setup to 1023/16/63, save changes and reset but no dice... the PC waits a while then BIOS screen comes up with:

sec slave HDD error
Press f1 to resume

then it boots ok minus the HDD

Any advice? I'm resigned t losing the data on it (replaceable) and trying to reformat it using EZ program but havent tried it yet.

John

[gwallen4]

Don't format the drive. The data is still there.

The problem is that bios is not recognizing the drive.

Further messages to follow.

[gwallen4]

Look inside your computer and see what IDE cable your second HD is on and what the jumper setting is (slave, master).

I bet you just forgot where the drive is located (primary slave, secondary master, secondary slave). When you find out, go back to bios and try auto, then the user setting for the correct drive position.

Good luck

[JUAN DOS]

Try setting the bios to default settings. There should be a single setting which will do this. Look on the first bios screen for instructions.

[johntr@lineone.]

That last one worked - reset to defaults. It then auto'd them. Thanks everyone for your help, you've made me v happy!


Isnt it odd, its always the simple things (that you dont try) that work... its easy to get fixated on the wrong problem and solution.

John

[Ice Czar]

Reset BIOS to Default (as mentioned above)
Force ESCD, Set time, and CPU Speed
and add a PASSWORD :p