2'nd hard drive no longer recognized?

[samfam]

When my last cpu fried (literally), I bought another pc to replace the old, and was able to salvage the old hard drive and install it as a slave in the new pc. It worked fine for a long time, all the files, music, pics, etc. were all there and accessible. Then recently I went looking for something and the drive wasn't listed anywhere. In both the boot and set up menu's it's still there but the description blinks. Any Ideas?

Thanks.

[Paul Komski]

Which Operating System?

If an NT OS then what shows in Disk Management? (enter diskmgmt.msc in the run box).

[samfam]

It's XP, and the drive doesn't show up at all in disk management, just the drives that came with the computer.

Thanks.

[Paul Komski]

Would double-check the connections (power and data) or even temporarily use the cables to your optical drive - with all drives appropriately jumpered of course.

Go into the BIOS setup and check that the drive is correctly identified there. If you can't get it properly seen in the BIOS then the drive is probably a goner though I would check it out in another PC or in an external case to confirm this.

Not sure what you mean by "still there but the description blinks". What exactly blinks?

[samfam]

In both the boot and setup menu's, where it shows the different drives, the one in question is displayed as "Maxtor ARES C6". The ARES C6 blinks off and on at about the same rate as a cursor, but nothing else does, and I'm sure it didn't blink when I first installed it.

Thanks.

[Paul Komski]

It doesn't look right or good. I would try the drive in another system or enclosure and run the makers diagnostics on it if seen there.