IDE drives not showing up anywhere after system restore

[munkytown]

I reinstalled Windows 7 last night and for some reason my second and third internal hard drives stopped showing up anywhere. My C: drive (SATA) and recovery partition still show up though and seem fine. I've tried using my Vista Restore DVDs to get the computer back to it's original state but the drives still didn't show up there either. I tried installing W7 over Vista after that and that didn't work either. Finally I tried installing Vista again with the Restore DVDs and replacing Vista with W7 and of course that still didn't work. A few months ago when I replaced Vista with 7 I didn't have any problems at all. As far as I know, I didn't do anything different this time. The drives do not show up in "Computer" or in "Device Manager" or even in the BIOS. Nowhere! Any ideas what the heck is going on? I had a lot of files on those drives that has taken me several years to accumulate. Nothing I can't really live without but it would suck trememdously if I can't get them working again. Thanks.

[munkytown]

Anyone??

[Computer_Commando]

...The drives do not show up in "Computer" or in "Device Manager" or even in the BIOS. Nowhere! Any ideas what the heck is going on? I had a lot of files on those drives that has taken me several years to accumulate...

If they are not shown in the BIOS, this would infer something else is wrong which has nothing to do with reinstallation or restore.  A drive will show in the BIOS with nothing on it at all.  All 3 drives should show in the BIOS, period.

[munkytown]

Ok? So what does that mean? I obviously already know there is something wrong whether it is the reinstallation or not. The reason I posted here is to hopefully find out if anyone can point me in the right direction to get this resolved. I've opened it up and checked all the connections and everything is fine there. So where else could I be looking for this "something else?" You pointed out that it is not a problem with the reinstallation or restore but didn't provide any info on what it could be. So if anyone does know, please let me know. Thank you.

If they are not shown in the BIOS, this would infer something else is wrong which has nothing to do with reinstallation or restore.  A drive will show in the BIOS with nothing on it at all.  All 3 drives should show in the BIOS, period.

[Salmon Trout]

Munkytown, if you want any more help, lose the attitude. Just a suggestion. People read it and it puts them off answering even if they know the answer. Elementary psychology really. Anyhow, I think your motherboard is failing, but whether you'll believe me is anybody's guess, given your "I don't like the (free) advice I have received" attitude.

[Quantos]

Munkytown, if the drive will not display in the bios then either the bios is faulty, or the hard disk itself has failed.

[munkytown]

Thank you Quantos. That's tells me more about what I need to look into to fix it. I just hope both hard drives didn't coincidentally fail at the same time 
And to anyone who thinks I have an "attitude," I don't. I just didn't see the need for someone to post that "something else is wrong" if they didn't actually have some idea as to what that something else was. Oh well, at least I have some idea of where to start looking 

[patio]

Slave Drive Tutorial

If possible i'd try this on another working desktop machine...

[munkytown]

Turned on my PC today after having it off all night and suddenly they are back! Still not sure what happened or how I got them back, just glad I did. Is it possible for drives to get too hot somehow and that cause them to not function therefore making it seem as though they aren't there or not working? Just wondering.

[patio]

Yes...

DLoad install and run SpeedFan...