all of sudden harddrives missing

[sirflo2]

hello...i'm new to this board, but from what i've seen, u guys appear to have some knowledge that may help me...my system is a 733mhz dell running xp pro with 2 hard drives (master 10gb, slave 20gb) a dvd drive and a cdrw drive...everything was working fine until one day when i powered it up it wouldn't boot...a "press f1 to reboot or press f2 to go to setup" appeared...of course the f1 was of no good so i went into the setup...the boot sequence only shows the 3.5 floppy...keep in mind no changes has been made to the computer in a while...although i did go to DSL within the last 6 weeks(no problems within that period)...i am into photography and have quite a bit of jpeg files and thought maybe the latest virus hit me...but from reading about this alert, i really don't believe this is the problem...i tried attaching another known good disk drive and the problem still exists...haven't tried switching out cable yet(hope this is the problem)...put a win98se boot disk in and the cd and dvd drives can be assessed but nothing else...mainly due to ms dos mode limit ability...this is just a summary of what's involved here...i hope it's enough info for someone to help me...i need my computer like yesterday...thanx,sirflo2

[ski]

Go into setup and modify the boot sequence selection so that the hard drive will boot either alone, or after the floppy drive but before the other drives. Most CMOS setups use the keys -/+/Page Up/Page Down(without the /)to modify the settings.
After modifying the settings, go back to the main setup menu, select "Save Changes and Exit' or similar, press Enter, type Y at the prompt, press Enter.

[Paleo Pete]

First question: Is the computer still under warranty? If it is, take it back and have it repaired under the warranty. If you open it up or we try to fix it, chances are you'll be voiding the warranty.

If it's not under warranty, the next question is: Are the hard drives detected by BIOS? The boot sequence should be A;C;CD ROM or similar, no BIOS I know of shows only A. Other boot sequences would be C;A;CD ROM, etc.

What drives are detected usually are displayed on the first BIOS screen, the boot sequence should be on a different screen, usually Advanced Options or similar.

If your information above came from the first BIOS screen, Standard CMOS, it sounds like the drives are not being detected. My first suggestion would be to check for loose cable connections then try a different IDE ribbon cable, but again if the machine is still under warranty...TAKE IT BACK...

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[mjc]

It could also be a sign that you need a new battery, the CMOS battery (some boards are now not using one...but the majority are, especially if the machine is a couple of years old) is used to keep the settings when you power down.

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mjc
Computer Links (http://www.dreamwater.org/tech/mjc/index.htm)

Celts are the men that heaven made mad, For all their battles are merry and their songs are all sad.

[sirflo2]

something new...first things first...it's no longer under warranty(damn)...i swapped out the ide cable and problem still exists...i tried a couple of other things including leaving the harddrives ide cable disconnected...low and behold, the bios recognized the 2 cd drives...if i reconnect the cable, nothing but 3.5 is detected...i tricked the system by disconnecting the harddrive ide cable and reassigning the cd as the first bootable drive..and then booted up with a boot disk(with a xp bootdisk first to see what would happen--i then used a norton 2001 cd)..i know...i probably should use the 2002 version that supports xp, but i'm desperate here guys...the norton software text says i should be able to test unrecognized hard drives under the disk docter utility...only the 3.5,cd, and dvd drives were testable...(go figure)...is there any other tricks i can try before i give up on this man made piece of crap...by the way, i know this is piece mealing, but please try to use your higher power to figure out what's going on here...thanx,sirflo

[mjc]

Check each of the hard drives one at a time on a new IDE cable.....

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mjc
Computer Links (http://www.dreamwater.org/tech/mjc/index.htm)

Celts are the men that heaven made mad, For all their battles are merry and their songs are all sad.

[sirflo2]

hey guys...i am officially back in action...apparently the secondary disk (20g)went awol on me(damn)...lots of info lost...who knows, i may be able to recover some data...anyway, i would like to thank all of u guys for your input...u guys rock...keep up the good work...thanx,sirflo2

[classicsoftware]

To Sirflo and everyone else on the forum:

There is NO excuse for losing data (unless you don't value it).

There are TWO kinds of computer users; those that HAVE experienced hard disk failure and those that are GOING TO experience hard disk failure.

Please I urge you all; get a zip dive, CD-R or Tape drive (my preference) and backup your data.

If you use the tape option you can get a Seagate IDE tape drive that will vack up to 40MB/min with excellent backup software and a second tape for under $300.00 bucks. You can program the drive to back up in the middle of the night, all you have to do is change tapes...... With the emergency restore feature after disk failure:

1. Install new hard disk.
2. Insert emergency restore disk.
3. Boot to A:> drive
4. insert tape
5. type restore
6. get a cup of coffee and wait for your system to restored exactly as it was before you crashed.

Whatever mention you choose, I urge you all to backup on a regular basis. It should be part of your daily routine...